


No Grave Deep Enough

by MnM_ov_doom



Category: T-34 (2019)
Genre: M/M, There is comedy, but it gets better, one-sided enmity, stuff that ghosts do and don't do, the ghost au nobody asked for, there are feels, there is angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 12:22:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 51,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28510359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MnM_ov_doom/pseuds/MnM_ov_doom
Summary: After escaping the Germans and making it back home, Nikolai thinks he can put the war behind and start a new life with Anya.Unfortunately for Nikolai, a visitor from beyond the grave comes to stay.OrThe author got carried away with ghost shenanigans, Klaus uses his ghostly powers for trollery and Nikolai has no chill.(monthly updates)
Relationships: Klaus Jäger/Nikolai Ivushkin, a very brief Nikolai Ivushkin/Anya Yartseva
Comments: 33
Kudos: 39





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First, a big thanks to handsomebastard for putting up with my stunts, for suggesting some plot ideas, and for coming up with the greatest medium of all times.
> 
> Other than that, I have nothing left to say other than I started this one year ago for the sole purpose of amusing myself with the concept of ghost Klaus Jäger and when I looked, I was 100-something pages deep into... uh... this.
> 
> (title from Primordial's No Grave Deep Enough)

He’s _home_.

Back to his mother, to his friends. And he brings Anya, and he introduces her to his mother, who immediately approves of her. Nikolai Ivushkin is a happy man. He’s peaceful, now that the war and its’ horrors are over for him.

While Anya and his mother talk, Nikolai drops his bags and looks around the familiar living room. _Home_. He’s longed for it, dreamed of it, cried for it. He smiles widely, tears already pooling in the corners of his eyes.

And that’s when he sees _him_. Leaning on the fireplace mantel: cap, uniform, boots, scars, pipe and predatory smile. Nikolai blinks his eyes quickly… but _he_ ’s gone.

Gone.

Sunken in a river, trapped under a tank and debris.

Gone, to never come back.

Nikolai looks around again, but there’s just him, his mother, and Anya.

Must be exhaustion – in fact, that’s the only logical explanation, because, throughout the day, as Nikolai’s aunt comes by to see him and meet Anya and help his mother make a special dinner, Nikolai catches more and more glimpses of _the German_ : while his aunt hugs him, Nikolai sees _him_ looking around in disdain; while he introduces Anya to his aunt, Nikolai sees _him_ inspect the books in the shelves; while the three women march into the kitchen and Nikolai takes his bags to his bedroom, he sees _him_ looking around the bedroom with a curious expression; while Nikolai and his family have dinner and he and Anya tell their stories, Nikolai sees _him_ pacing around.

But, every time their eyes meet, _he_ disappears.

Therefore, it can only be a hallucination. Perfectly normal, Nikolai has been through a lot: a battle, imprisonment, _the German_ , escaping, interrogation by Soviet authorities and the long journey home.

That is all past, though. Putting down his fork, he reaches out to hold Anya’s hand, sitting by his side, and announces happily to his mother and aunt he and Anya are going to marry.

Among happy congratulations, Nikolai hears a chocked sound at his left and looks with a frown at where it apparently came from.

And there is _he_ again.

_Klaus Jäger._

Coughing like he’s choked on something; then he recomposes himself and looks at Nikolai… but, this time, he does not disappear when their eyes meet:

“You cannot marry that woman, Nikolai!” he exclaims with brotherly patience, his voice loud and clear in Nikolai’s ears. Also understandable, instead of that harsh gibberish that is the German language.

That convinces Nikolai he’s exhaustion-hallucinating, and he smiles at Klaus before turning his face away.

He’s going to marry Anya, and they’ll live in his village, and have children, and be happy forever.

* * *

Nikolai’s mother declares that, for the sake of decency, Anya is staying with Nikolai’s aunt, in the house next door. Oh, if only she knew… but Nikolai will leave his mother in blissful ignorance.

Besides, Nikolai’s bed would be too small for the two of them, and it actually feels good to be alone in the familiarity of his old room. Nikolai had had many a dream of sleeping in his bed, and it has finally come true.

A good night of sleep will do wonders to him.

But he can’t fall asleep while his hair is being stirred in such an annoying way, and he opens his eyes to see Klaus bent over him, ruffling his hair like he’s petting the massive head of a dog.

Nikolai clamps his hands over his mouth to muffle an enraged shout, then does the most mature, problem-solving thing: he pulls the blankets over his head and curls up in a ball. Something unpleasantly cold presses against his back.

“Your hair is ridiculous like that!” Klaus exclaims. Nikolai slowly glances over his shoulder, to see Klaus curled behind him, frowning. “You’re going to cut it tomorrow.”

The next second, Nikolai is standing in the middle of his dim room, looking in horror at his bed. His heart is racing and he’s slightly nauseated:

“Who even thought it looked decent on you?”

Nikolai turns around abruptly and there he is: Klaus Jäger, in his uniform, but with no hat or pipe. Despite the dimness in the room, Nikolai sees him perfectly, like the German is standing under the sun.

Nikolai is just having a bad dream, but he’s so tired he doesn’t even bother to pinch himself – he needs to sleep, even if poorly. That’s something he learned when he was imprisoned: better something than nothing at all:

“You’re just a nightmare and you’ll be gone in the morning…” Nikolai grunts as he climbs back to bed and makes himself comfortable under the blankets. Klaus is still standing in the middle of the room and he raises both eyebrows:

“Oh, I know of something that will be gone in the morning!” he chuckles, seemingly very amused. “Good night, Nikolai.”

“Yes, whatever, let me sleep.”

In the blink of an eye, Klaus is gone. Nikolai’s strangest dream so far, but he won’t waste time thinking about it. Almost immediately, Nikolai falls in a deep, dreamless sleep, but wakes up before dawn.

A habit he had caught during his time at the academy, a must during imprisonment.

It’s silent, outside. Nikolai hasn’t had the chance to hear _silence, peaceful silence_ in a long time. War and imprisonment are far away now, and Nikolai sighs contently and pushes himself to a sitting position – since he’s already up, he can go for a walk around the village, he’s missed it so much and-

There are locks of hair all around him: on the pillow, on the blanket, on his shoulders, and now that he’s moving, on the carpet too.

Nikolai is dumbfounded and blinks his eyes stupidly at the hair. Slowly, he raises a hand and runs his fingers over shaved scalp.

“Now, that’s _my_ Nikolai!” a very gleeful voice exclaims, and Nikolai slowly turns his head to look at the window. Klaus is standing next to it, with his arms crossed over his chest, no hat, but with his pipe secured between his teeth. He looks extremely proud of himself.

This time, Nikolai pinches his arm. Hard. And again, and again.

But Klaus keeps looking at him, his expression changing to curious:

“Nikolai, stop pinching yourself.”

Which Nikolai does, with a dismayed look on his face, and he touches his shaved head again while looking at Klaus.

Nikolai somehow must have caught somnambulism and he’s still hallucinating. It’s simply trauma and it will eventually stop, he just needs time. Slowly, he stands up and looks again at Klaus, still watching him curiously:

“I will kill you with tea and sleep!” Nikolai proclaims, then frowns offendedly as Klaus bursts out laughing.

He has an obnoxious, stupid laughter – and he’s laughing so hard he’s starting to snort. Making a disgusted face, Nikolai turns his back at him and leaves the bedroom.

The house was remodelled shortly before he left to the academy and now the bathroom is indoors. He showers quickly with cold water, just to make sure he’s awake, then wraps himself in a towel and goes back to his bedroom to get dressed and sweep all that hair.

Klaus is gone!

He was just… a stupid hallucination, some remnant of dream that, for the rest of the day, is nowhere to be seen: Nikolai walks around the village peacefully, first alone and then arm in arm with Anya, introducing her to his neighbours and friends and showing her the place where he grew up; Nikolai enjoys peaceful meals with his family and Anya, and they even start planning the wedding; Nikolai goes to sleep in an empty bedroom.

As he closes his eyes to sleep, Nikolai hopes somnambulism won’t strike again, lest he do something not as easily explainable as shaving his head…

When he wakes up the next day, there is nothing different about him… and the horrid German is still nowhere to be seen. Nikolai feels extremely well-rested, despite having woken up so early again.

That morning is going to be busy: Nikolai needs to go to the police station and deliver some papers, so that he’ll transition from the army and start working as a police lieutenant within a month; then he and Anya are going to the church to schedule their wedding.

While waiting outside his aunt’s house for Anya to come out, Nikolai feels something unpleasantly cold on his shoulder. He immediately turns around… and there is Klaus, in his uniform and hat, contempt written all over his face while he holds Nikolai’s shoulder:

“This place is extremely primitive. I’ve just seen someone using a bathroom _outside_ their house!” He then looks around. “Though I must admit these little houses are very picturesque.”

Nikolai shakes his head vigorously, blinks and rubs his eyes, even slaps his face… but Klaus is still standing there, looking at him with a predatory smirk and a strange glint in his eyes:

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Nikolai…” he teases, and that has Nikolai gaping in shock.

The front door opens and Anya comes out, smiling and beaming in a red polka-dot dress. Nikolai is too horrified, looking at Klaus, and he doesn’t react at all when Anya hugs him and kisses his cheek.

Klaus raises an eyebrow and makes a disgusted face, but in the blink of an eye… he’s gone.

Nikolai looks around like he’s just startled awake, and he _finally_ notices Anya. She’s still smiling, but there’s a slight crease between her brows:

“I was just… I thought I saw something,” Nikolai excuses and smiles, then kisses her forehead. She seems content with the explanation and, arm in arm, they walk leisurely across the village, heading to the police station. Nikolai’s eyes scan their surroundings discreetly, but… there is no hallucination to be found.

Only when they approach the church does Nikolai see Klaus again, wandering the graveyard.

Klaus’ words ring in his mind. _You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Nikolai…_ Nikolai understood it perfectly, even though he doesn’t speak German and Klaus didn’t speak Russian.

A ghost.

Nikolai doesn’t believe in ghosts. He doesn’t think he even believes in god anymore, but his and Anya’s family would like a traditional wedding. Nikolai is a man of reason, of logic, of palpable things. There are no miracles if there is no hard work to achieve it. He’s so distracted looking at the wandering German that they enter the church with Anya leading the way.

And Klaus is standing by the altar.

Nikolai hesitates, until eventually he stops halfway in the nave:

“Kolya?” Anya calls in a soft voice, and Nikolai looks at her, blinks his eyes, then looks at the altar again, to see Klaus pacing back and forth, seemingly interested in all the iconography surrounding the altar.

Right, schedule the wedding. Klaus didn’t stop Nikolai from breaking free, and he certainly won’t stop him from marrying Anya. He smiles at her, apologetic, and starts walking again:

“I thought I forgot to deliver one of the documents, but it’s all taken care of,” he excuses himself:

“Already lying to her?” Klaus asks, walking next to Nikolai. “That is a marriage that won’t last!”

“Shu-“ Then Nikolai clenches his jaw, refusing to talk to a hallucination. He looks around, mindful of Anya’s questioning gaze. “ _Such_ a beautiful church!”

Klaus bursts out laughing. Nikolai hates that sound, but is decided not to look at Klaus. Fortunately, a priest emerges from the door behind the altar, and Nikolai sighs in relief - talking about the wedding will certainly keep him distracted from the… hallucination.

In good Klaus fashion, however, the damned hallucination proves to be a pain: it starts by grunting at Nikolai’s ear that he cannot marry Anya, then shouts threats of ruining the wedding. Like this isn’t annoying enough, suddenly all the candles flicker before the small flames die out, and some paintings fall, and the doors slam closed.

What an awful gush of wind – that is what Nikolai thinks to himself as he instinctively looks at where Klaus is standing, behind the altar, face deformed in wrath.

Klaus had never looked particularly handsome, not with those extensive scars and not with such a predatory intensity in his gaze, and in that moment he looked… feral, _inhuman_. No human face, angry or disgusted, should be able to contort like that.

The priest looks around, frowning, then walks up to one of the fallen paintings and picks it up to hang it on the wall again. Yet, the frame and the icon are broken in half to the middle of the painting. His frown deepens, but he says nothing.

When Nikolai and Anya leave the church, Anya completely undisturbed by the _gush of wind_ and happily towing Nikolai by their linked arms, Nikolai glances behind and sees Klaus following them, stomping his way and with his hands balled into fists:

“You cannot marry her, you’re making a mistake!” he growls.

Nikolai has never heard of aggressive hallucinations, but he quickens up the pace to the point that Anya is trotting next to him. It is not like he’s afraid, because _he is not_. He just feels… uncomfortable, and he doesn’t want it to show and upset Anya.

Fortunately, when they reach Nikolai’s home, the angry hallucination is gone. Nikolai is certain this is something he can solve with time and rest, and that there is no need to worry Anya with it.

Anya, his beautiful bride. They will marry in the winter: by then, Nikolai will already have enough money from his new position as police lieutenant to buy a house for them. It will also give Anya time to apply for schools in the area to work as a teacher. It suits her wonderfully: patient and bright like she is, Anya will make a perfect teacher.

Nikolai sighs happily and closes his eyes to sleep, hands crossed on the pillow under his head.

“You _will not_ marry that woman, Nikolai.”

Cracking one eye open, Nikolai sees Klaus sitting at the edge of his bed, in full uniform and chewing angrily at his pipe. Seems Nikolai is so stressed from the war that his own hallucination is stressed as well. He opts for ignoring it and closes his eye again.

The next moment, however, he startles as the blankets are pulled back and he changes to a sitting position, looking angrily at Klaus, who’s staring daggers at him, clutching the blankets.

But he can’t be clutching the blankets, because he’s not real. He’s a hallucination. Nikolai is imagining things and he probably just had a muscle spasm and kicked the blankets. So, he grabs the blankets again to pull them back.

They’re… stuck. Nikolai can’t pull them, can’t pry them from Klaus’ grasp.

He looks in shock at Klaus, whose lips curve up in a malicious grin. Nikolai frowns and tries again to retrieve the blankets, but Klaus grabs him by the sleeve of his pyjama – cold seeps through the fabric to reach Nikolai’s skin, flesh, and bone – and yanks Nikolai forwards, until their faces are inches apart. Klaus irradiates cold and Nikolai gapes in mute horror as he fails to pull away:

“Do I have your attention, now?” Klaus asks, sounding visibly pleased with himself. Nikolai wants to believe he’s dreaming, but every sensation – the cold, the strength restraining his arm and blankets – are simply… too vivid.

What kind of monster is this German?

“I won, leave me alone!” Nikolai snarls and tries to pull away again. Yet, his sleeve is caught and well caught in Klaus’ fist. “I’d have pulled you up, you chose to fall!”

Klaus’ expression softens, and so does his grip. Nikolai flops back immediately, pulling the blankets over him like a shield.

“You won, yes,” Klaus agrees. He smirks, clearly pleased with himself. “But I can’t leave you. You’re mine.”

Klaus had seemed strange and creepy in life and now seems to remain so in death. Nikolai lets out a pained sigh and turns his back at Klaus:

“No, I am not. I _won_. I am free. I escaped from your camp, I defeated you in that duel. I won.”

Yet, Klaus crosses his legs and hunches his back, like Nikolai has just invited him to stay and listen to a long story. Nikolai narrows his eyes and tries to kick Klaus off the bed, but all he does is kicking through chilly air:

“You did all that, but you’re still mine,” Klaus proceeds. Even dead, he’s stubborn. “You won’t marry that woman.”

“Just watch me,” Nikolai grunts. Klaus’ smirk widens:

“Just watch me stop you.”

Maturely, Nikolai turns his face away and closes his eyes. Yet, he feels Klaus’ intense gaze on him – it’s extremely uncomfortable, and Nikolai sighs, sadly, and opens his eyes again. He looks at Klaus, only to see him staring attentively at him with a content expression:

“Go away. Go… go make whatever dead people do,” Which is, to leave the living alone.

“I can’t go anywhere, Nikolai. I’m stuck here…” He stretches a hand and his fingers brush Nikolai’s cheek tentatively. It’s cold, unpleasant, and Nikolai hides the lower half of his face under the blankets. He might not believe… might not have believed?... in ghosts, but older people in the village do. Like his mother. She’ll know what to do, she’ll…

But, in order for her to _do something_ … Nikolai will have to tell her he’s being pestered by the dead man that caused him so much trouble. That will upset his mother, she’ll be worried… and what will Anya think of him?

“Is everything alright, Nikolai?” Klaus asks in a soft, mocking tone.

“Yes. You’re just a bad dream,” Nikolai grunts in reply, then hides under the blankets again.

He always wakes up early… he can go to the church, he can ask the priest…

Nikolai doesn’t believe in ghosts, but he’s certain he has a problem that must be solved as quickly as possible. He’ll start by more… traditional methods. If it works, it works. If it doesn’t…

He sighs, presses his eyes tightly shut. One step at a time.

When he wakes up the next morning, he’s alone in his bedroom. Yet, he no longer feels relieved, which saves him the disappointment of having Klaus walking next to him when he leaves the house hurriedly, heading to the church across the village:

“Such a good soldier, already up this early!” Klaus chirps. His strides match Nikolai’s, his back is straight and his shoulders stiff, making his arms rigid as he walks. Nikolai ignores him for the sake of walking faster.

The small church always has its doors open, and Nikolai walks in decidedly. Klaus keeps walking next to him and looks around, interested:

“My parents were Protestant,” he informs. Nikolai doesn’t know what that means and he doesn’t want to know, either. “The church they attended to was bare, boring.”

The priest is nowhere to be found, so Nikolai walks up to the door behind the altar and knocks. He waits a little as Klaus wanders around the altar, observing the icons with visible interest. Nikolai is about to knock again at the door when the priest peeks out with a sleepy face. He’s old, with a long grey beard, but instead of the customary black garments, he wears a nightgown.

Behind him, Klaus snorts:

“Aren’t you ashamed of bothering this old man, Nikolai?” he teases. Nikolai ignores him and, after a heartfelt apology, explains his problem briefly. The priest goes from sleepy to extremely interested, and after excusing himself for five minutes, he returns in his black garments and carrying a bucket of holy water and a paint brush.

Nikolai is enthusiastically sprinkled with water, incensed, blessed, given a cross and told to go his merry way.

All the time, however, Klaus is watching nearby, laughing so hard that he ends up snorting. When Nikolai leaves the church, Klaus follows him:

“That was… a curious morning shower!” he exclaims cheerfully, walking side by side with Nikolai. “You’ll have to take another shower, though. I hate this scent of incense.”

Nikolai seriously considers incensing himself daily.

Unfortunately for Nikolai, the scent of incense makes his mother hopeful that he’ll reconnect with god, and leaves Anya suspicious that something _is wrong_ with him. He blurts out that he was strolling near the church, tripped and fell on a crate with incense that the priest had ordered for the church.

Next to him, Klaus bursts out laughing. Idiot.

Nikolai cannot let Anya know about Klaus. What will she think of him?? And his mother, and his aunt? _And the whole village_?

So, he tries to ignore Klaus. He hopes the German ghost will get bored and leave. Yet… _Klaus is impossible to ignore_ : if someone is talking to Nikolai, he will start talking too, preferably at Nikolai’s ear; if Nikolai tries to look away, Klaus will do everything to be in his field of vision; if Nikolai tries to be alone outside, or in a room, or with Anya, Klaus will always materialize in a corner, or next to him… and talk... and do everything to be seen… and make lights flicker, and make wood shutters slam, and make things fly off shelves, and make Nikolai’s towel disappear from the bathroom.

* * *

Nikolai loses it on the third day of acknowledging he is being haunted by SS-Standartenführer Klaus Jäger.

It all starts when, after breakfast, Nikolai and Anya leave for a picnic in the woods. Klaus follows them, furious, rambling about how Nikolai is taking too long to get rid of Anya. Flocks of birds take flight from the trees ahead of them, squirrels climb as fast as they can to the top of the trees and even a spooked deer crosses from one side of the path to the other, to disappear in the thick woods. Anya is surprised that the animals are so busy, Nikolai tells her that there’s probably a hunter in the woods.

Nikolai has been under a lot of stress for the last couple of days – namely, the inability of getting away from the German and having to keep him a secret.

So, when he and Anya arrive to the lakeside and set down the picnic basket, Nikolai can’t help but punch Klaus when the picnic towel magically escapes Anya’s hands and flies straight to the middle of the lake. Yet, Nikolai achieves nothing: his fist strikes through cold air, Klaus smirks and raises an eyebrow, and Anya gives him a shocked look:

“I…” Nikolai reddens in the face. “… it was a mosquito!”

“And how will you explain the towel?” Klaus asks, delighted. Nikolai looks at him with a murderous glint in his eyes:

“It was the wind!” he replies. Because the wind would totally do that:

“What?” Anya asks, confused, and smiles nervously at Nikolai. Klaus bursts out laughing and it takes all of Nikolai’s willpower to turn his back at the ghost without attempting to punch him again:

“The wind took the towel and I hit a mosquito!” Nikolai explains, hoping he’s sounding patient and not… exasperated. “We can sit on my jacket, and I’ll go get the towel and hang it on a branch.”

Anya nods, slowly. She doesn’t seem convinced about the wind ( _maybe because there is no wind blowing_ ), but she smiles when Nikolai undresses his jacket and spreads it on the ground with a flourish. Then, Nikolai walks past Klaus, heading to the lake. He’s not surprised that the German trots after him:

“Are you seriously going in the lake? Then what, will you dry yourself to the towel?” Klaus asks, sounding very amused. The pipe has appeared in the corner of his mouth:

“I’m not expecting you to return the towel, so I’ll have to get it,” Nikolai grunts.

No no no, he doesn’t want to talk to Klaus. He stops near the water and starts unbuttoning his shirt. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices Klaus frowning:

“How deep is this lake? Are you going to undress in front of that woman?” he no longer sounds amused, but concerned. Shocked, even. Nikolai doesn’t bother to answer and removes his shirt.

The next moment, the towel is gliding towards him. He casts Klaus a curious look, feeling oddly satisfied at how the German has pushed his lower lip out in a sulky pout. Nikolai dresses up his shirt again and picks up the soaked towel:

“The fish returned the towel, if she asks…” Klaus grunts, walking next to him.

Nikolai chooses to ignore him, and he stretches the towel under the sun, over the green foliage of a shrub near the tree where Anya is sitting under. Nikolai sits next to her, smiling, and leans in for a kiss:

“When are you getting rid of her?” Klaus asks. Nikolai turns his face to look with narrowed eyes at Klaus, lying on his back and with his head too close to Nikolai’s legs. With a snarl, Nikolai folds his legs under his body and changes to a kneeling position.

“Kolya?” Anya asks, and oh, right, _the kiss_. Nikolai smiles apologetically and dusts off his legs:

“Ants!” he excuses. Klaus cackles:

“If you love her so much, why do you keep lying to her?” he asks. Nikolai doesn’t want to have that conversation and turns his attention to the picnic basket:

“I’m starving, what did you make for us?” he chirps happily. Anya perks up at that and they start taking out apples, and jam and cheese sandwiches from the basket, laying it out in the tight space between them on the jacket:

“You don’t have an answer for me, Nikolai?” Klaus is propped up on his elbows, his legs stretched forwards and one crossed over the other. Nikolai takes a bite on an apple and chews angrily. “You don’t really love her. You’re just infatuated. It’s understandable, she’s the first woman you’ve seen in years… but that does not suit you, Nikolai.”

Nikolai tosses the apple core at Klaus’ face, but it just flies past him. Klaus narrows his eyes:

“How rude, littering!”

Still giving his best to ignore Klaus, Nikolai starts to eat a jam sandwich:

“Can’t wait to marry you,” he tells Anya. She smiles widely, delighted, and Nikolai spends a moment looking at her.

Anya is beautiful, sweet, intelligent and brave. She helped him and his tank crew escape, she stood by his side. How can Nikolai not love her for the wonderful person she is?

Leaving his sandwich aside, Nikolai pulls Anya to a kiss. That earns him a shocked gasp from Klaus:

“Stop that!” he commands. Nikolai grunts and deepens the kiss and feels Anya thumb at his cheek. He loves Anya, he wants Anya and he’s going to marry her. “Nikolai, stop that! You’re making a huge mistake!”

Suddenly, there’s a loud crack above their heads. Nikolai instinctively scrambles atop of Anya to protect her, but he’s not fast enough to shield her from falling branches and a brief hail of pinecones. In the commotion, the picnic basket and the food are kicked and smashed by Nikolai’s shoes and the remaining apples roll away.

Nikolai and Anya lie pressed together for a second. With a shaky hand, Anya raises a finger to a bleeding cut on her forehead. She looks extremely distressed when she sees the blood.

And that is when Nikolai, in a fury, leaps at Klaus, still lying placidly on his original spot. He growls that Klaus has no right to harm Anya and threatens to kill him in every way imaginable, all the while trying to punch and strangle him.

Yet Klaus simply grins, dark and dangerous, not bothering to move an inch. Nikolai only stops when Anya shrieks a demand to know what the hell is happening.

Nikolai is tired, worn, he’s fighting an enemy he can’t hit and Anya just got hurt. He looks at her with wide eyes and points at Klaus:

“It’s him!!!! He doesn’t go away!!!” he roars for all the woods to hear.

But there is just silence, and Anya frowning in confusion.

Nikolai realises his mistake and he looks, horrified, from Anya to Klaus. He jumps to his feet, strides to Anya and grabs her hand, then tows her to where Klaus is slowly standing up and stretching:

“He’s here!! _He’s right here_ , the reptile!!!” Nikolai hisses angrily, forcing Anya to touch Klaus’ arm. Klaus, who looks so amused with the whole thing. Nikolai tries to punch him again, only to hit the tree behind Klaus.

Klaus frowns:

“Stop that, Nikolai. You’ll hurt yourself…”

“Go away!! Go to hell, where you belong!!!” Nikolai attempts once more to strangle him.

Yet, he stops. He feels Anya’s eyes on him, and he turns his head to see her looking at him with wide, terrified eyes. She had looked exactly liked that in the camp. Nikolai runs a hand over his shaved hair, nervously, momently unaware of his busted knuckles:

“It’s Klaus. It’s Klaus’ ghost. He’s been nagging me since we arrived and…” Nikolai points accusingly at Klaus, who simply stands there like he’s the embodiment of innocence.

Anya looks at where Klaus is standing, then looks back at Nikolai. Besides terrified, she now looks concerned:

“Kolya… there’s nothing there…”

“Stretch your hand! You’ll touch his arms!” Anya does exactly as Nikolai says, and he asks, hopeful. “Did you feel it? The cold?”

“I… I didn’t feel anything…”

They stare at each other in tense silence. Klaus looks at them curiously, chewing gently on his pipe.

Then, Anya sighs and smooths over her dress:

“You’re tired, Kolya. We should go back,” she says softly.

Nikolai blinks his eyes, like he can’t quite understand what is being told to him, then he turns his head abruptly to look at Klaus.

But Klaus is gone, only to reappear in Nikolai’s bedroom after dinner, when Nikolai walks in, closes the door… and sees the German sitting cross-legged on the bed. He’s not wearing his hat and jacket, nor does he have his pipe. Klaus is quiet, looking at Nikolai with the same type of cautious curiosity a misbehaving child watches an angry parent.

Nikolai clenches his jaw:

“I’m going to get rid of you,” he strides to the bed, glowering at that obnoxious ghost. “And you’ll never hurt Anya again.”

“You do realise I could have killed her already,” Klaus asks with the intonation of a statement.

Nikolai has not thought of that. At first, Klaus had been just a hallucination, a trick of his tortured mind. Then, Klaus had become an annoying ghost, like a petty spirit from a folktale. He doesn’t want to give Klaus power over him by believing the veiled threat, and so he opts for remaining defiant.

The German had never chastised him for it, anyway…

“I have no interest in the woman and there is no need for bloodshed,” Klaus proceeds. With a grunt, Nikolai lies down at the edge of the bed, as far as possible from Klaus’ crossed legs. “There never was a need for bloodshed, Nikolai… If you had just-“

In yet another gesture of maturity, Nikolai covers his head with the pillow. He will not listen to Klaus’ gibberish, he will not let Klaus take him to the past. He will sleep, and rest, and tomorrow he will take Anya to a clearing in the woods that is always full of flowers by that time of the year, and he will give Anya his mother’s engagement ring to show her she already belongs to the family.

Nikolai sleeps undisturbed. However, when he wakes up at dawn… he can’t open the window… nor the door.

He leans his forehead on the wood, suddenly exhausted, and considers his options.

Breaking the window or the door open, then have to come up with an excuse for his mother… and for Anya. That wouldn’t be good. Anya was already concerned the day before, if Nikolai does something as… as violent as _breaking_ a window or a door, she might be scared of him. War changes people, but Nikolai doesn’t want Anya to think that of him.

Because it is not true.

Because he has another, more civilized way:

“Klaus…” he groans, sighing in defeat. “Open the door…”

“No.”

Nikolai was already expecting that. He turns around to find Klaus standing in the middle of his bedroom, with his stupid hat and chewing at his pipe:

“Afraid I’ll get rid of you?” Nikolai asks flatly:

“You can’t get rid of me, Nikolai. No, I’m protecting you from that woman,” Klaus replies in an equally flat tone.

For a moment, Nikolai considers tossing caution to the wind, break the window and circle the house to get in by the front door again. There is no possible reasoning with that German.

So, Nikolai strides away from the door, grabs the little stool at the feet of his bed and makes a beeline to the window – trying to shove Klaus aside, but actually crossing through cold air. Once he reaches the window, he lifts the stool and…

And…

And…

_And he cannot hurl the stool at the window._

Seething, Nikolai glances over his shoulder, to see Klaus smiling darkly at him.

Could cunning beat a ghost?

“Could… could you please open the door?” Nikolai asks through gritted teeth. Klaus raises an eyebrow and tilts his head, seemingly interested. There must be something he can bargain with Klaus, something…

Then, it dawns on him.

He lets go of the stool, but it keeps floating, rigidly, like invisible hands are still holding it. Nikolai smooths over his pyjama to give himself a more composed look, then he walks up to Klaus and stops in front of him. They’re practically the same height and the German stands there, in colour and looking extremely solid:

“Fine, let’s make a deal. You gave me a chance, remember? A tank and my skills. I’ll give you a chance, too. Whenever Anya isn’t around, you can try and change my mind about marrying her and not getting rid of you,” At that, Klaus narrows his eyes and pulls his lips into a feral smirk. There’s something about his facial features that makes his face different from the majority of people – and different doesn’t mean particularly pleasant to the sight, no, especially with those scars. Nikolai sets his jaw for a moment, then proceeds. “But just like I had ammunition, you have…” ‘Powers’ is too strong and Nikolai doesn’t want to acknowledge it. “… weird abilities. And since this is between you and me, you’ll leave Anya and my family out of this.”

The intensity of Klaus’ gaze is… disturbing, invasive. Klaus puffs his chest and stretches his smirk in a way no human should – yet, he’s not human anymore (if he ever was), he’s… dead. He reaches for Nikolai, who hesitates just a second before accepting to shake hands with Klaus.

Nikolai can’t hold Klaus’ hand, but he sure feels a gelid, strong grip around his hand.

Both the door and the window open, silently.

And Nikolai exits the bedroom with a pile of clothes and Klaus following him, visibly delighted:

“Spying me in the shower won’t help your cause…” Nikolai grunts after closing the bathroom door and turning around to see Klaus sitting on the edge of the bathtub:

“I don’t know why you’re so shy, Nikolai… you had little privacy, during the war,” Klaus states. Nikolai wraps himself around a towel and takes off his pants:

“Maybe that’s why I want my privacy back.”

“You won’t have any privacy if you marry…”

“I still won’t have any privacy with a perverted ghost spying on me!”

“We’re men, which makes it less weird.”

Nikolai casts Klaus a deadpan look – the man (ghost) probably lived in barracks for too long. Nikolai then secures the towel around his waist and undresses his pyjama shirt. It’s five in the morning and he already feels… exhausted. Klaus is grinning like the over-confident fool he is, probably certain Nikolai is now a friend. Nikolai takes in a deep breath, hoping to summon patience, when he notices a thing he hadn’t noticed before, when Klaus was alive:

“Is that a wedding ring on your finger?” he asks curiously. Klaus’ grin drops and he looks down at his ring:

“No. This is my honour ring,” He sounds fond, but all Nikolai cares is that the ridiculous ghost is talking about a subject he clearly doesn’t know first-hand:

“You can’t counsel me on marriage if you’re not married,” Nikolai argues logically.

Klaus seems suddenly upset at that and he frowns. Nikolai walks up to the bathtub (firmly holding the towel in place), gets in as far as possible from Klaus, then closes the curtain.

Only then does he remove the towel and hangs it on the curtain pole.

Nikolai spends the entire shower staring at the curtain and at the towel: unfortunately, that is not the first time Klaus has stayed in the bathroom while Nikolai showers, and the awful ghost is keen on making Nikolai’s towel and clothes change places – namely, going from the bathroom to Nikolai’s bedroom…

Nikolai almost shouts out victoriously when he sees the towel moving and immediately snatches it and wraps it tightly around himself. Across the curtain Klaus laughs, clearly delighted:

“You do realise upsetting me will not help your cause…” Nikolai points out, peeking from behind the curtain. Klaus is pacing back and forth, jacket and hat gone but pipe firmly secured between his teeth. Nikolai steps out of the bathtub and immediately looks at his little pile of folded clothes, checking if something is missing.

“I’m not upsetting you, I’m making you company,” Klaus argues in a condescending tone. Nikolai opts for not replying: instead, he focuses on trying to get dressed with the towel wrapped around him.

When Nikolai heads to the kitchen to prepare himself breakfast, Klaus follows him eagerly. Usually, Klaus is relatively… behaved… in the kitchen, but Nikolai assumes that, since he was spared from ghostly pranks in the bathroom, the scale must be evened with ghostly pranks in the kitchen.

That can be the only reasonable explanation as to why the bread keeps hopping away:

“This isn’t impressive _at all_!” Nikolai complains when he finally catches the bread. Klaus, sitting at one of the chairs, looks at him like he’s particularly dumb:

“I’m playing with you,” he explains.

Nikolai had always thought Germans were strict and stern. His experience had taught him Germans were cruel. Klaus, however, doesn’t seem to fit properly in the first two categories: smoking his pipe while leaning on a vehicle as he watched Nikolai and his crew remove dead bodies from a tank hadn’t given him a particularly strict look; being so childishly excited about them being namesakes hadn’t made him look that stern. Cruelty fits Klaus like a glove, but making things float out of Nikolai’s reach seems like pettiness and childishness.

“You’re ridiculous…” Nikolai concludes.

Like Nikolai said nothing at all, Klaus stands up and walks to the lonely table in the corner, seemingly curious. Nikolai remembers that, every time they are in the kitchen, no matter the shenanigans that take place, eventually Klaus is drawn to that corner. Nikolai had always thought the German might want to explode the device on the table, but he realises now Klaus is probably just curious about it:

“It’s a samovar. It’s used to heat water to make tea,” Nikolai explains patiently.

Klaus is looking at it like he can’t understand how it works. Nikolai snorts at that, _because who doesn’t know how a samovar works_?

“Why not using a teapot?” Klaus asks, circling the table:

“The teapot goes on top to heat up. Then we pour the heated water in the samovar into the teapot.”

“That doesn’t make sense. Why not using a kettle?”

“Because we heat water in the samovar.”

“Why heating up the teapot and then pour in the hot water? That doesn’t make sense, it must take an eternity to make tea!”

“If you pour boiling water on the herbs, you’ll ruin the tea!”

And, just like that, Nikolai is discussing tea with a German ghost. If there’s one thing that Russians are superior at, besides tanks, _that is tea_ , and Nikolai takes it personally in demonstrating how his way of making tea is so much better than Klaus’ simplistic ‘boil the water in a kettle, pour it into a teapot with herbs, wait five minutes and drink it’.

It’s six in the morning when Nikolai leaves the house for a walk. Klaus follows him, of course, ranting about the ungodly amount of time it takes to make tea. Nikolai assumes the German never realised it took this long because he was too entertained annoying Nikolai, instead of standing there quietly, staring at the samovar, watching it like it was fancy technology.

Nikolai doubts the samovar will ever capture Klaus’ attention like that again, and that means that his days of eating peacefully are over.

They cross the village towards the nearby woods. Nikolai casts a discreet look at one of the lonely houses nearest to the trees – Uncle Vanya’s house, and if the priest didn’t succeed in getting rid of Klaus, then Uncle Vanya will: the old man knows every folklore tale, all the traditions, and Nikolai remembers very well when he was a child and spent many winter evenings, with his friends, listening to Uncle Vanya’s stories and ancient wisdom in his small, dark house.

The only disadvantage of talking to Uncle Vanya is that the old man might comment Nikolai’s problem with his mother… or with someone else, and Nikolai does not need anyone else to know about Klaus: the priest and Anya are already too many people.

There’s a bright red fence around Uncle Vanya’s house, and the black cat perched atop of it, bathing in the gradually rising sun, widens its eyes at them. Nikolai frowns, because he had never seen such an alarmed look on a cat before, but shrugs it off as they approach the woods.

A dirt road leads the way across the woods. As a child, Nikolai loved to run to the very end of the road, a small clearing that divides the safe part of the woods to wander while picking up mushrooms or berries, and to fish on the lake and streams, and to hunt small game, from the untouched, primordial woods across the clearing where wolves and bears dwell.

Nikolai knows that part of the woods like the palm of his hand. He leaves the road and heads to the lake where, the day before, he attempted to have a peaceful picnic with Anya. Klaus walks next to him, surprisingly quiet.

The broken branch and the scattered pinecones are still on the ground. Nikolai clenches his jaw and side-eyes Klaus, who simply looks around, innocently.

Together, they approach the lake and start walking around it in a quick pace.

And, soon enough, Klaus is shoving at Nikolai with a huge, naughty grin. Nikolai could make the effort to ignore it… but he’s the one walking between the water and Klaus, and he can’t shove back at the damned ghost:

“Throwing me in the water won’t help your cause…” Nikolai grunts:

“I’ll catch you if you fall, Nikolai!” Klaus assures, his grin growing into a huge, playful smile:

“What _exactly_ are you trying to achieve with this?” Nikolai asks with a sigh.

That makes Klaus stop, and Nikolai stops as well and turns to look at him. The hat and the pipe are no longer with Klaus, and he’s simply staring at Nikolai and blinking his eyes slowly, like Nikolai made a question that has such an obvious answer that common sense is all it takes to get there:

“I wanted your allegiance,” he says, slowly. Nikolai rolls his eyes and snorts, baring his teeth. A memory flashes in the back of his mind, of a cold and damp cell flooded in warm light and a dark figure standing there with him, demanding his skill as a tank commander. Shaking his head, Nikolai proceeds to walk around the lake. Klaus trots quickly after him. “But that doesn’t matter, now. I want you. I want your friendship.”

Nikolai barks a dry laugh at that, then looks at Klaus like he’s particularly delusional:

“Good luck with that!” Not that the German will ever have anything from him.

Yet, by the way Klaus smirks and raises an eyebrow, he takes it as an incentive.

* * *

Nikolai didn’t expect Klaus to strictly follow the deal Nikolai had no intention to stick to. So, Nikolai wasn’t surprised at all that, when he went to lunch with Anya and his aunt, Klaus followed him. The German, however, seemed content in staying in the background instead of demanding Nikolai’s attention.

It somehow makes Nikolai feel extremely uneasy, because Klaus, pacing back and forth in the dining room and looking curiously at the carpets on the walls, can only be plotting something. Instead of enjoying his aunt’s and Anya’s company (and the meal they made), Nikolai spends the entire time glancing furtively around the room and over his shoulder, gaze fixed on the wandering German and paying little attention to what is being told to him.

When he and Anya leave for a walk, Klaus follows at a distance… and Nikolai realises he does not like to have Klaus Jäger behind him – or anywhere he can’t see him:

“Klaus again?” Anya eventually asks, when Nikolai keeps looking behind, to see Klaus strolling around a few meters behind them, hands behind his back and looking at everything like it’s the first time he sees the village. He has his full uniform and his pipe.

Nikolai looks at Anya, embarrassed. Yet, she gives him a small smile, understanding, and squeezes his hand affectionally:

“He’ll leave, don’t worry,” she assures him. “He’s simply a ghost.”

And Nikolai just knows Anya thinks he’s hallucinating, and that the day before she got hit by a pinecone because pinecones do fall off trees and she probably just had bad luck.

For the time being, Nikolai won’t explain further.

He feels Klaus’ eyes on his back, can even imagine him smiling in that ominous way of his, with his head tilted to the side and his scars stretched and wrinkled – ugly, unpleasant.

* * *

For the next couple of weeks, Nikolai’s routine consists of putting up with Klaus in the morning, stress about his quietude in the evening, then put up with him again at night.

Sometimes, Klaus just sits on the edge of the bathtub and lets Nikolai shower in peace; most times, he _plays with Nikolai_ , as he likes to call it: he makes Nikolai’s clothes or towel disappear (once, Nikolai yelled at him and both clothes and towels were gone – and Nikolai had an extremely embarrassing encounter with his mother while he tried to sneak back into his bedroom, naked and hopefully unnoticed at ungodly hours in the morning); he opens and closes the curtain like a child discovering a door for the first time; he makes Nikolai chase around the soap if Nikolai tries to ignore him.

Sometimes, Klaus just sits at the table and lets Nikolai prepare breakfast in peace; most times, he _helps Nikolai_ , as he calls low quality culinary shenanigans: if Nikolai ignores him, he puts salt in Nikolai’s tea; he puts the bread on top of a cabinet and when Nikolai climbs a stool to retrieve it, he makes the bread float back to the table; he makes the jam fall from the knife to the table, and no matter how close to the jar Nikolai holds his slice of bread… if Klaus doesn’t want him to have jam, Nikolai will not have jam (Nikolai once made the mistake of calling Klaus a nasty name, and all the jam in the jar went straight up to the ceiling).

Sometimes, Klaus just walks quietly next to Nikolai; most times, he _is friendly_ , as he proudly calls incessant chatting (monologues, actually) and overall being a pain in the arse: he chats, and if Nikolai replies just through monosyllables, Klaus makes dogs in the village bark, flocks of birds fly away in a panic, and wolves in the woods howl; he shoves at Nikolai and touches his shoulders and arms (once, Nikolai told him to shut up because he wanted to pick up mushrooms and liked to do so in silence… but Klaus made the mushrooms disappear).

Sometimes, Klaus just sits quietly on Nikolai’s bed and lets him sleep; most times, he _wants to share comfort_ , as he calls appearing under the blankets: he snuggles up on Nikolai; he chats some more; he shoves at Nikolai; he steals the pillow and plays with the blankets (once Nikolai explained to him that the only person he wanted to share a bed with was Anya, and the next moment he was on the floor, wrapped tightly on the carpet and unable to move); he makes Nikolai’s pyjama disappear; he opens the window because he wants to see the stars.

And every time that Nikolai and Anya are together, Klaus is _always_ in the background, _always_ quiet… and nothing is more unsettling than Klaus Jäger staying quietly around him and Anya.

Nikolai discovers that Klaus has moments of utter dumbness and can’t identify sarcasm: most times, Klaus beams and acts like Nikolai is playing with him. When the silly ghost figures out Nikolai _was just being sarcastic_ , he pouts and makes things fly off shelves or branches fall from trees. But Nikolai also discovers that Klaus can be a content and relatively quiet company if he simply talks back to him – subject isn’t really a problem, Klaus can speech about anything and Nikolai can contradict anything he says. The problem is… _patience_. Usually a patient and careful man, Nikolai has very little patience for Klaus - he explained it once to the ghost, but Klaus replied that patience came with age, which had annoyed, and confused, and worried Nikolai.

It wasn’t Klaus being haunted by the ghost of his worst enemy!

How old was Klaus anyway to talk like that?

Was Klaus going to stay… forever???

* * *

Nikolai looks himself in the mirror, admiring his new uniform. Anya is waiting in the living room with his mother and aunt, and Nikolai wants them to be the first to see him as a police lieutenant.

Unfortunately, they will be second… thanks to the German ghost sitting on Nikolai’s bed and looking at him with a stupid smile. He’s silent, though – and after those last weeks, Nikolai now knows better than disturbing Klaus when he’s quiet.

Klaus always ends up disturbing himself, anyway…

Nikolai puts on his officer cap:

“That’s ridiculously big,” There, Klaus can’t be quiet for long. Nikolai sighs:

“Your mouth is ridiculously big, too,” he replies, and it earns him a snort. Nikolai then turns around and walks to the door:

“Still, you’d be better in the army. Such a waste…” Klaus comments and stands up to follow Nikolai, who refrains right on time to tell Klaus _he’d be better in the place where dead people go to_. He opts for ignoring the German and exits the bedroom.

Or tries to, because he can’t open the door. He sighs again and pinches his nose bridge:

“I could make a general out of you, Nikolai…” Klaus whispers behind him, a cold breath tickling the back of Nikolai’s neck. It sends a shiver down his spine, but he moistens his lips and his hand remains on the door handle:

“Open the door and we’ll go out for a walk after dinner…” he grunts. He can imagine Klaus narrowing his eyes:

“With the woman?”

“No.”

The door opens and Nikolai stumbles out of his bedroom after an enthusiastic push.

Of course, Anya is delighted to see Nikolai in his new uniform. She’s supportive of his new career, and Nikolai is thankful for that. She’s also incredibly patient and understanding when Nikolai tells her quietly that, later, he’ll go out for a walk with Klaus.

And it’s a shame that Anya isn’t there, because the twilight is beautiful: the sun is setting in the horizon, painting a strip of warm pink above the trees and mountains that contrasts starkly with the dark blue sky dotted with stars above the village; the air is hot but a fresh breeze blows gently and the village is quiet.

Even Klaus is quiet, strolling leisurely next to Nikolai. They walk towards the woods, but before they reach the first trees, Nikolai sees Uncle Vanya approaching, carrying a stack of wood.

Nikolai is a man who seizes an opportunity when he sees it:

“I’ll just help Uncle Vanya,” he explains innocently. Klaus, naïvely magnanimous in death as he had been in life, nods and watches Nikolai as he trots to meet the old man and relieve him from his burden. Nikolai makes small talk with Uncle Vanya as they go to his house, and only when they are standing on the porch and the old man is opening the front door, does Nikolai ask the question he’s been ashamed to ask whenever Anya was with him. “Uncle Vanya, why do you have salt by the doorway?”

The old man, bent by the weight of the years, wearing traditional clothes and a long white beard, looks up at him like he asked something particularly ridiculous:

“To keep bad spirits away,” he explains patiently and tries to take the stack of wood from Nikolai’s arms. “Thank you for your help, Kolya.”

“Yes, Kolya… very helpful…” Klaus sneers at Nikolai’s ear, startling him slightly. “I thought we were past this…”

“And that’s why I escaped your stupid training!” Nikolai hisses lowly and smiles at Uncle Vanya. “I’ll take this inside!”

Pleased for another bit of help, Uncle Vanya bows his head and signals Nikolai to walk in. With one big stride, Nikolai is inside the house.

Much to his annoyance, so is Klaus.

When Nikolai proceeds the walk towards the woods, Klaus walks next to him, silent, but all the dogs in the village are barking and wolves howl from afar:

“Why are you upset? It didn’t stop you, did it?” Nikolai grumbles as he walks into the woods. He loves the woods at night: loves the darkness and quietude, the mysterious fog around the trees when it’s colder, the moonlight seeping through the branches. However, with Klaus throwing a tantrum, the woods aren’t exactly quiet – an owl takes flight nearby and crosses their path, startling Nikolai.

Klaus goes to stand in front of him. Nikolai can see him clearly, like he’s under daylight: he’s not wearing his officer cap, he doesn’t have his pipe and gloves, and his lower lip is pushed forwards in a sulky pout. He looks ridiculous and Nikolai finds it difficult to take him seriously:

“You’re always betraying me, Nikolai. Every time I loosen the reins, you take the bit between your teeth,” Klaus grunts, stepping into Nikolai’s personal space. He then tilts his head and raises his eyebrows for emphasis. “I mean no harm. How am I supposed to stick to my end of the deal if I can’t trust you?”

“It’s not betrayal… I’m just testing your capacities…” Nikolai replies, shrugging innocently. Klaus narrows his eyes, looking suddenly extremely interested in what he’s being told. “You survived an Orthodox priest and a handful of salt, so let us see how you’ll do with… two handfuls of salt.”

“I thought we already had a deal…?” Klaus purrs. Nikolai can’t hold it anymore and chuckles:

“We do, but you’re doing so poorly…” And there it is, the sulky pout. Chuckle turns to laughter and, eventually, even Klaus starts laughing too.

The German probably thinks that Nikolai is joking about ‘testing his capacities’, because the next morning he announces he’ll stay outside to give Nikolai time to prepare the miraculous salt.

But Nikolai isn’t joking. He is still very serious about getting rid of Klaus, and because it’s six in the morning, no one is watching and Klaus is outside, Nikolai grabs the salt jar and leaves not a handful, but a generous line of salt in every window sill (thankfully, Nikolai’s mother is a heavy sleeper), and under the chimney, and on the doorway.

“Did you know that ‘salary’ comes from ‘salt’, because Roman legionnaires were paid with salt?” Klaus chirps happily, and Nikolai nearly jumps out of his skin. He turns around abruptly and the bloody ghost is sitting in the rocking chair, Nikolai’s mother’s favourite, chewing at his pipe. “Who’s going to clean up the mess, Nikolai?”

Nikolai clenches his jaw and looks at the nearly empty jar in his hands. Well, that was a glorious waste of time… and of salt… What would Anya say, if she saw this? _What will his mother say, if she wakes up before Nikolai can sweep away all the salt??_ He leaves the jar on the floor and goes to the kitchen to get the broom – yet, when he returns, there’s no salt on the doorway and the jar is full. Frowning, Nikolai looks at the fireplace – no salt under it, either. Just to be sure, Nikolai goes to inspect all the window sills… and the salt is gone. He returns to the living room quickly, and the jar is still where he left it, full of salt, and Klaus is rocking himself in the chair, visibly amused and chewing expectantly at his pipe. For a moment, Nikolai just blinks his eyes, until he finally finds words:

“Thank you,” he says, honestly, and Klaus’ smug smirk grows into a huge smile that reaches his eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for your interest in these ghostly shenanigans :')

Sitting at his large desk in his new office, Nikolai looks worriedly from Klaus, going through all the files, to the closed door that might open at any moment.

Nikolai Ivushkin is now a police lieutenant in his village. He is excited about it: some of the agents under his command are childhood friends he hadn’t seen since he left for the academy when the war began, plus he will be able to help his people. Besides, the pay is good, and it will allow him to buy a comfortable house for him and Anya.

A loud thud startles Nikolai, and he widens his eyes at the precarious piles of files that have suddenly materialized on his desk. Klaus peeks above them:

“You must read these files, get acquainted with-“ Klaus starts, and Nikolai bursts out laughing:

“You don’t get to order me around, Klaus!” Besides, Nikolai doesn’t want to read all those files – he won’t need to plan ambushes to enemy tanks, so he doesn’t need to study maps and enemy intelligence. This is a small village, the police are there to give the people a sense of security, to supervise the agricultural works and make sure that nobody sabotages the war effort. But Nikolai knows these people, he knows they would never do anything against their motherland.

Klaus raises an eyebrow and sits at the edge of the desk:

“If I recall correctly, you don’t have an impressive resumé when it comes to be in a commanding position,” he states, and that makes Nikolai clench his jaw bitterly. “On the other hand… I have, and I can assure you that the higher you climb, the more time you spend behind a desk reading files.”

The German sounds… disappointed. Nikolai believes him and his eyes linger on the oak leaves on Klaus’ collar. SS-Standartenführer. Unfortunately, Nikolai is familiar with German ranks – Klaus is just two ranks below a general. Nikolai makes a face and, reluctantly, reaches out for a top file on one of the piles:

“You didn’t quite sit behind a desk, if I recall correctly…” he accuses. Much the contrary, Klaus had happily walked around the camp, pestering Nikolai with his presence. To that accusation, Klaus bursts out laughing and slides closer to Nikolai:

“I don’t like to sit behind a desk…” Klaus explains innocently. Nikolai knows that and feels oddly sympathetic towards him. He can’t help a smirk:

“Good thing I escaped, then.”

Klaus laughs again. He is loud and snorts and he is so ridiculous that Nikolai can’t help but chuckle.

It all stops when the inspector walks in Nikolai’s office. Nikolai immediately jumps to his feet and salutes the inspector, who looks around. He’s tall and thin with a black moustache and has small eyes that scan everything:

“I see you’re studying, comrade lieutenant,” the inspector says in a quiet voice. Nikolai nods, watching with growing concern as Klaus starts walking in circles around the inspector. “Making up for the lost time, I assume.”

Nikolai frowns, confused:

“Lost time, comrade inspector?”

“You were imprisoned by the Nazis,” The inspector shrugs. “But, since you’ve been placed here, I expect you to make a good work.”

With that, the man leaves. Klaus follows him to the doorway and peaks outside. He then turns back inside at the same time there is a loud thud followed by a crash. Nikolai’s frown deepens and he walks to the door to see what happened. He approaches the empty stairs to the ground floor and sees the inspector being hauled up from the floor by two militiamen.

Nikolai immediately runs back into his office and closes the door. Klaus is sitting at the desk, on his chair, idly leafing a file:

“What did you do?” Nikolai asks, feeling his ears redden.

The inspector doesn’t like him because he was imprisoned all those years and, for all the Russian people know, Nikolai Ivushkin, the hero that escaped imprisonment and brought his crew home, might as well be a Nazi spy. Nikolai is aware of this, and he can’t wait to prove himself worthy.

_He doesn’t need a ghost fighting his battles with low tricks._

“I didn’t do anything…” Klaus excuses with a shrug and attempts an innocent smile. But he just bares his teeth in a predatory grin and his scars, wrinkled and stretched, of an angry pink that stands out in his skin, just make him look… pleased. Nikolai strides to his chair:

“You’ll cause me trouble. He can say I pushed him.”

“No one pushed him… He just tripped on his own feet…”

“I don’t want you to do that!” Nikolai hisses angrily. He forgets for a moment that Klaus is a ghost and tries to pull him up by the collar, but he grasps cold air. “I don’t _need_ you to do that. I can defend myself. Now, get off my chair!” 

For a moment, Klaus makes that mischievous smirk he usually makes before doing something to annoy Nikolai. But it turns into a sulky pout, and he stands up from the chair just to sit on the desk, right next to Nikolai. Grunting a ‘thank you’ under his breath, Nikolai sits back on his chair and starts reading the files – seems he really must to that in order to earn some respect.

Klaus is surprisingly quiet for the rest of the morning. He’s sitting there, close enough for Nikolai to feel a constant chill, but he doesn’t chat. Klaus swings his legs, rocks himself back and forth, drums softly on the hardwood top of the desk, arranges the piles of files meticulously. As hours tick by, Nikolai grows aware of tension building gradually in his office – it’s almost like a summer storm, when the air is hot, heavy and damp, and dark clouds gather while lightning tears the sky and thunder rumbles lowly. It makes him… uneasy, and eventually he looks away from the file he’s reading and frowns at Klaus.

Klaus, who’s looking at him with the desperate face someone makes when holding their breath for too long:

“Stop that…” Nikolai complains.

“Can we go lunch, now? You’ve been sitting there for an awful lot of time, Nikolai. There will be no food left for you if you take too long: trust me, the mess is worse than the battlefield!” Klaus blurts out, visibly relieved for _talking_ again. Nikolai raises both eyebrows at the German and checks his wristwatch.

Half past midday. He snorts:

“You don’t even need to eat, and I’ve got enough experience of starvation,” He turns his attention back to the files. “The faster I read these, the better.”

The next moment, however, Nikolai is yanked to his feet and towed towards the door:

“Army or Police, you’re an officer and you must behave as such. You’re not in the battlefield, so you’ll go have lunch at the mess: it’s called _etiquette_ ,” Klaus scolds, opens the door and pushes Nikolai outside. Fortunately, the corridor is empty and no one sees Nikolai stumble out of his office, turn around rapidly and attempt to dart inside again. Better, no one sees him try to open the door like his life depends on that.

To make things worse, Nikolai’s stomach grumbles loudly. He stops struggling against the door and casts Klaus a murderous look.

Klaus, smiling victoriously and practically bouncing on the balls of his feet:

“We just need to go lunch, it’s not like it will take the whole day…” the German says. Nikolai frowns:

“I left my hat inside…” Too bad, the hat appears on his head. Nikolai curses, admits momentary defeat and heads to the stairs with Klaus walking next to him.

Nikolai (and Klaus) toured the building that morning and Nikolai remembers where the officers mess is, but even if he didn’t, it wouldn’t be hard to follow the racket of men and cutlery. Now that he’s going to lunch, Nikolai realises it’s a good opportunity to find some of his childhood friends that made it into militiamen – he hadn’t told them when he had found some of them in the village, that he had been transferred to the police; he had wanted to surprise them.

Because, of course, Nikolai has no intention of having lunch with Klaus Jäger, who’s already chatting excitedly like they are colleagues. Or, worse, friends…

* * *

Nikolai’s friends were indeed… surprised… to see that he had been transferred to the police as _lieutenant_. Some of the other officers looked at him with mistrust (and, deep down, Nikolai was oddly pleased to see their food magically evading the forks to attack their pristine uniforms).

The food was just slightly better than Nikolai’s rations during his imprisonment because it was Russian food.

Nikolai ended up alone at a table – that is, alone with _Klaus Jäger_ commenting on the consistency of Nikolai’s mashed potatoes.

Nikolai still has dozens of files to read.

And yet, at dinner, he tells his mother and aunt and Anya that everything was perfect. Klaus, standing behind him, bursts out laughing and sneers about marriage and truth.

Nikolai hates when Klaus does that. He wasn’t even married, how dare he talk about something that isn’t even his field of expertise? Though, even if it was, Nikolai would not want to listen.

Unfortunately, Nikolai can’t block Klaus’ words… and sometimes he can’t help thinking about it.

Like now, when he’s lying awake in bed and asking himself why he said ‘perfect’ instead of ‘not exactly what I had expected’. His mother, his aunt, Anya… they are his family, he has already proven himself to them. His mother and aunt would tell him it would get better, Anya wouldn’t think less of him.

He’s going to marry her; he doesn’t want to hide things from her.

In a fit of childish anger, he pulls the pillow from under his head and tosses it at Klaus, who’s sitting on his bed, leaning against the wall and with his legs stretched forwards, like he has every right to watch Nikolai sleep – _the ridiculous ghost goes as far as taking off his boots, jacket and cap!!_ The pillow flies through Klaus and lands harmlessly on the floor. Besides the disappointment of having failed to hit Klaus, now Nikolai must stand up to recover the pillow.

“What was that for?” Klaus asks, amused.

The pillow returns, hitting Nikolai square in the face but not with enough force to hurt him. On the plus side, now Nikolai won’t have to stand up to retrieve it. With an annoyed grunt, Nikolai arranges the pillow under his head:

“Because of you, I have to earn my peers’ trust again!” he complains. Klaus chews at his pipe, interested:

“But, Nikolai… you had no trouble earning your crew’s trust, in the camp,” he starts, slowly, raising both eyebrows to make a point. “You had no trouble convincing the Soviet authorities that you aren’t a German spy, and your neighbours treat you as a hero,” Klaus’ eyebrows go even higher. “I don’t think that earning your colleagues’ trust is the problem. You like a good challenge, Nikolai…” He smiles, self-important, and Nikolai wonders why he is even talking about it with Klaus.

It’s Anya he should be talking to.

“It’s the woman, isn’t it?” With his head tilted up and smirking like that, Klaus has the looks of a content lizard in the sun. Nikolai decides this has gone too far and he pulls the blankets over his head:

“She has a name and she’s definitely not a problem!”

“It’s _me_ you’re venting with…” Klaus says, sounding very pleased with himself.

Nikolai chooses not to answer.

Because Klaus is right. _Worst, Klaus knows he’s right_ :

“I didn’t vent, just to make that clear…” Nikolai eventually replies, but it’s too late.

Klaus is right. Nikolai vented to him. Not to Anya. He didn’t see Anya and said ‘Because of that bloody German, I need to earn my colleagues’ trust.’ No, he _talked to Klaus himself_. Besides, Klaus was there. He saw it.

He even did something about it.

And Klaus actually… gives good advice.

Nikolai hides further under the blankets.

* * *

For an entire week, Nikolai’s life consists of waking up to Klaus urging him to hurry up, going for a walk in the woods (the reason why the German wants him to hurry) and spend the rest of the day in his office, reading files. Nikolai discovers that, after lunch, he gets too impatient to keep sitting down. He walks around the office reading the files, instead.

Klaus is blissfully quiet in the beginning… yet, as days go by, his ability to be silent and sit in a corner decrease.

It starts with a file floating around the office – but it’s simply a file, Nikolai can ignore it.

It escalates rapidly into floating files hitting Nikolai (with Klaus cackling in the background).

The situation must be addressed when Nikolai is walking around the office, reading, and his chair hits him from behind and then takes him spiralling up to the ceiling. Nikolai, in a sudden panic (it’s not like he had pilot training…) lets go of the file and holds tightly to the chair, watching in horror as the notes and documents descend graciously to the floor while Klaus, sitting on his desk and looking up at him with a wide, amused grin… _laughs_.

“Put me down!!” Nikolai roars, clutching the chair like his life depends on it. Maybe it does. Especially now, that he’s upside down and…

_Oh dear lord, he’s falling!_

But he doesn’t feel the impact against the floor. Slowly, Nikolai cracks one eye open, only to widen both eyes and look around.

 _He’s floating above his desk_.

Klaus is looking at him, delight written all over his face. His thin lips are stretched in a smile and his little tooth gap makes him look boyish. There’s a playful glint to his eyes, wide and staring intensely at Nikolai. It’s… innocent. Would be innocent, were not the scars, stretched and wrinkled – a warning about how all that glitters is not gold, a reminder of who the playful ghost really is.

“Put me down, Jäger,” Nikolai says through gritted teeth.

Klaus’ smile dies and Nikolai lands hard on his desk.

Before Nikolai can straighten up, there’s a knock on the door and Anya walks in.

Her broad smile freezes, then morphs slowly into a half horrified, half confused grin:

“She could have waited for permission…” Klaus states dryly. For the first time since he has known the German… _Nikolai agrees_ :

“I was… tidying up,” he excuses with a lopsided smile, scrambling off his desk and spreading around more loose papers in the process. Anya nods solemnly:

“I’ll be waiting outside, then. Call me when you’re ready,” she replies and exits the office, closing the door with a soft click.

Nikolai immediately looks at Klaus, who’s balancing on _Nikolai’s chair_ :

“Put my files back in order!!”

Klaus simply stares at him, considering, chewing at his pipe. It’s incredibly annoying to see him constantly chewing and sucking and chewing again at the damned pipe. Nikolai wonders briefly how he caught the habit and goes as far as feeling sorry for Klaus’ tank crew for having to put up with a pipe chewer/smoker in their tank. But when did Klaus get himself that pipe? After he became a colonel and someone tried to sit him behind a desk? _Did someone give him that pipe to keep him quiet, like when a mother gives a dummy to a crying baby?_ If so, it failed miserably… but the thought of some superior officer walking up to Klaus and sticking that pipe in his mouth to shut him up is incredibly hilarious.

“What is so funny, Nikolai? Your office is a mess!” Klaus grunts, though he tilts his head and looks suddenly curious.

Nikolai becomes aware that he’s chewing his lips in an attempt to keep himself from laughing. His first thought is to snap at the German… but then he realises he can take advantage of Klaus’ curiosity:

“I’ll tell you…” Klaus raises one eyebrow at that. “… if you put my files back in order.”

Klaus perks up at that and snaps his fingers. Nikolai watches, marvelled, at how every document floats back into its respective file case and how all the files fly neatly into the drawers and to their respective places in the shelf. It’s like a childish German ghost never played with Nikolai’s patience. Nikolai nods approvingly at Klaus, who beams, and Nikolai smiles in anticipation at cutting Klaus’ enthusiasm:

“I was just wondering how you got your pipe. Did some superior officer shove it in your mouth to shut you up?”

Nikolai imagined Klaus’ smile would drop and that he would pout – or, Nikolai thinks a bit too late, wreak havoc with the files.

Instead, Klaus holds the mouthpiece of his pipe with his teeth and offers Nikolai a smug smile as he tilts his head to the side:

“Suddenly fascinated with my mouth, Nikolai?” he purrs. Nikolai chokes on air and splutters. With that same smug smile, Klaus winks and sinks a little on the chair, then spreads his legs just a little.

He looks so ridiculous Nikolai falls to his knees, laughing and bent over. The offended/disappointed look on Klaus’ face and the way he abruptly crosses his legs again cause Nikolai a renewed fit of laughter.

“Kolya?” Anya calls from outside, immediately sobering up Nikolai. “Are you alright?”

Nikolai practically flies to the door to open it and invite Anya in:

“You shouldn’t have that woman in here, men have loose tongues…” Klaus scolds, sitting very straight on the chair. Nikolai ignores him and tries to close the door.

For some reason, he’s not surprised that he can’t move the door…

“I need to get this fixed…” Nikolai excuses to Anya with an apologetic smile. She smiles too, but there’s something… reserved… about it. Nikolai needs to make up for the disgraceful state Anya found him in and he leans in to kiss her.

He feels a cold breath on his neck and cuts the kiss incredibly short:

“I bought this pipe,” Klaus informs, standing right there like the shameless third wheel he is. “It helped me to blend in,” It’s so absurd that Nikolai can’t help but frown at him in confusion. Klaus sucks loudly at the pipe, clearly intending on annoying Nikolai. “The woman is staring, _Kolya_.”

Right, Anya. Nikolai immediately looks back at her. She looks… concerned:

“We could lunch, the two of us!” Nikolai chirps:

“Then, send her away!” Klaus chirps back.

Anya smiles and nods, Nikolai links arms with her and they walk out of his office. He feels his cap land softly on his head:

“I might glue this cap to you, Nikolai…” Klaus muses, like he’s actually considering it. Nikolai, flanked by Anya and Klaus, casts Klaus a threatening glare.

He exits the building like he has two body-guards, and no matter how delighted he wants to feel for being in his uniform and parade his wonderful bride for all to see… Klaus brushing their shoulders as they walk just makes him feel incredibly awkward.

Klaus is the one parading around. There’s something regal about his gait, about how his back is so straight and his shoulders so pulled back. Klaus is clearly used to the pomp and circumstance of uniforms – he spent his career in one whilst Nikolai spent his in a _prisoner_ uniform.

Suddenly, Klaus locks eyes with him and his lips curve up in a smile. Hurriedly, Nikolai looks away and quickens his pace to the point that Anya is nearly trotting after him.

They have lunch at the village’s small restaurant, taking the only table for two – that is tucked away in a corner, away from the windows and from where the conversation in the kitchen can be heard. Nikolai had hoped it would keep Klaus away for lunch, but much for his annoyance and _complete horror_ , the moment he sits down on the chair, Klaus sits on his lap and leans his back against the wall, a victorious grin wide on his face.

For a ghost, he weights probably as much as Nikolai – with the aggravating factor that _Klaus is freezing cold_. Nikolai must have made a face, because Anya frowns, and to dismiss her concerns Nikolai tries to lean over and hold hands with her over the table. Yet, that implies sticking his left arm _through_ Klaus’ torso, and it’s enough that his legs feel like there’s a massive ice cube on his lap.

Nikolai smiles instead:

“Well, this was a nice surprise! I wasn’t expecting to see you before dinner!” he says conversationally. Anya perks up at that and crosses her hands over the table:

“I have good news!” she announces with a smile, that dies just a little. “But also… a small inconvenience.”

“This sounds good!” Klaus whispers under his breath and drapes an arm around Nikolai’s shoulders, like he’s leaning onto a close friend over a mutual achievement. It’s icy and makes Nikolai shiver slightly, and he crosses his arms tightly in front of his chest to try to mask it:

“It can’t be that bad, Anya!” he says, more to reply to Klaus’ comment than to incentive Anya to proceed. He’s currently too annoyed with being cold to even access the ‘inconvenience’ Anya mentioned.

“I… I can teach German in a school, but it’s two hours away from here…” Anya begins and her smile dies completely. “And, if I accept the job… we can’t marry this year.”

Oh. That’s…

“Wonderful news!!” Klaus exclaims, delighted, bouncing just a little on Nikolai’s lap. “A toast to that!”

“We can marry the next year, it’s not a problem!” Nikolai assures _and how he wishes he could push the bloody German to the floor._ “Don’t worry, Anya. I can wait for as long as you need!”

Anya beams and Nikolai smiles back at her. That’s when Klaus bends forward to block Anya, his lower lip pushed out in a sulky – dramatic – pout. He has stood this close to Nikolai before, but Nikolai had never wanted to pay attention to the details of Klaus’ face, something he unwillingly does in that moment.

The first thing he notices is that Klaus’ eyes are… blue. Incredibly so, without a shade of green or grey. The next thing is that, for someone who used to do battle in a tank, Klaus’ nose bridge is thin and straight. Infuriatingly so, like he never accidentally hit his face on the inside of his tank at impact. Also, those scars on his face are… very deep.

Nikolai blinks his eyes and bends at an awkward angle to look below Klaus and smile at Anya, who looks suddenly at a loss of what to do and so keeps smiling, though in a slightly nervous way:

“I can wait for you, too,” Klaus grunts. Nikolai casts him a quick glance, shifting his smile into an annoyed grimace that must have looked horrible to Anya _and please god let her be looking the other way_.

A waitress comes with the menus, providing a wonderful distraction. Nikolai takes the chance that he can hide his and Klaus’ faces behind the open menu and properly glowers at the German:

“Then you better sit down, because you’ll have to wait a long time!” Nikolai whispers. And maybe he didn’t choose his words right, not by the way Klaus smiles widely – Klaus does have a large mouth. “I meant-!”

“I’m already sitting, Nikolai. Comfortably so…” Klaus purrs in return, looking over the menu like he actually needs to hide and like his ridiculous cap wasn’t already peeking from behind temporary cover. “She doesn’t love you. If she did, she wouldn’t put a career before you.”

“She loves me and I love her and because I love her, I’ll support her choices!!” Nikolai wants to smack Klaus’ ridiculously straight nose with the menu, but opts for elbowing him instead… which results in hitting nothing but freezing air. “That’s what love is about!”

“What are you going to order?” Anya asks, oblivious to the discussion happening across the small table.

“Besides, you shouldn’t even be here!” Nikolai proceeds annoyedly. “You promised to leave me alone when Anya-“

“Excuse me, but that woman is meddling with _our_ time! I have all the right to be here!!” Klaus snaps back.

“Kolya?” Anya calls again and Nikolai peeks over the menu. Thankfully, Klaus leans back against the wall and Nikolai can see Anya again. He smiles and puts down the menu:

“Yes?” That makes Klaus burst out laughing in that annoying snorting way of his. Anya seems slightly taken aback, then raises her eyebrows:

“What are you going to order?” she asks again. Nikolai shrugs:

“The same as you!”

By the time they finish lunch, Nikolai’s legs have fallen asleep due to Klaus’ weight – which is ridiculous, because Nikolai is fit and Klaus seems slender under the uniform. Not that Nikolai wants to know. Much the contrary.

“I’ll go back to that school tomorrow to tell the director I’ll accept the job,” Anya tells as Nikolai walks her to his aunt’s house. “Then maybe I’ll need to go to Moscow to get some papers.”

“We could go to Moscow, Nikolai!” Klaus chirps happily, shoving against him as they walk and consequently making Nikolai stumble over Anya. “We met on the way to Moscow, remember? If it weren’t you, I’d have gotten there before any of my comrades!”

“We could go to Moscow this Sunday!” Nikolai suggests, coming up with a quick plan. Of course, he says this to Anya and not to Klaus, and he doesn’t need to be looking at the German to see his expression: he can feel Klaus’ excitement plummet towards the centre of earth. “And have a picnic in a park!”

Anya beams and nods, delighted. Klaus goes to stand behind her, with a shocked expression on his face that turns into anger when they stop by the front door of the house and Nikolai kisses Anya.

“I’ll go with you to Moscow!” Klaus hisses, baring his teeth like a wolf. Nikolai ignores him and starts walking back to the police station, replying only when he hears Anya close the door. He looks at Klaus, frowning:

“No, you won’t. You shouldn’t even have come to lunch!”

“ _She_ appeared when I was rightfully spending time with you!”

“And you should have kept your word and stay in my office, now Sunday you’ll stay at home while I make up to Anya for this lunch!”

“She ate, didn’t she??”

“That’s not the point!!” Nikolai yells and turns around to look angrily at Klaus. Only then does he realise he’s in the middle of the street and people are staring at him, in his uniform… apparently alone and talking to himself.

Oh, how Nikolai wishes he was indeed talking to himself and not to the petulant brat of a ghost that’s standing there looking back at him. Suddenly very self-conscious that everyone is looking, Nikolai proceeds hurriedly. Klaus trots after him:

“If you take me to Moscow another day, I’ll stay at home and won’t break anything…” Klaus grunts. Nikolai casts him a surprised look:

“Just look at you being reasonable!” He smiles smugly, certain that he has finally figured how to smoothly juggle Anya, his beautiful bride, and Klaus Jäger, the clingy and childish ghost of his worst enemy. “Fine. Next week we’ll go to Moscow.”

Klaus is surprisingly calm and content for the rest of the day and throughout the week. Of course, files float around the office and occasionally bump on Nikolai, but the air around them doesn’t feel… chaotic, or tense with unleashed energy. Plus, Nikolai can shower peacefully.

When Sunday comes, Nikolai leaves an apparently behaved ghost alone and unsupervised with his mother. He feels wonderful as he and Anya walk with linked arms and a picnic basket to the train station.

He feels content when they are in the train.

He feels slightly distressed when they are crossing the Red Square and, just to be sure Klaus hasn’t followed them (well, he doesn’t need to follow, he can just… _appear and disappear_ ), Nikolai keeps looking around.

He is rightfully suspicious as they stand in front of a shop and Anya is commenting about a dress _and Klaus Jäger hasn’t appeared to ruin the day… yet_. How does he even know where to appear, in the first place? How does he know where to find Nikolai? Can he be summoned? Does he know what Nikolai is doing? And where did he come from? Was he watching Nikolai somewhere until he decided to appear? _Why is he here?_ Will he leave?

“Kolya?”

Nikolai blinks his eyes quickly and looks at Anya. A smile has frozen on her face and her bright eyes feel suddenly… piercing. She’s studying him, looking for something – perhaps, the reason why he hasn’t commented on the dress she’s talking about. But what is there to say? It’s a dress, it would look good on her because… dresses look good on women? Like the same way uniforms look good on soldiers.

“Yes?” he asks sheepishly. Anya is still looking at him like she’s… analysing a map where the enemy positions are marked:

“Is everything alright?”

“Yes! I was just…” Nikolai sighs. “I was just…” He doesn’t want to lie. He doesn’t want to sound crazy. “I…” But Klaus is right, Nikolai and Anya aren’t even married yet and Nikolai is already keeping things from her. He doesn’t want that. “I was just… making sure Klaus isn’t here.”

_Would Klaus hear his name?_

_And appear?_

Anya’s face grows serious. She blinks her eyes, slowly, then tugs Nikolai’s arm so that they’ll proceed to stroll down the street:

“Tell me, Kolya… what exactly does Jäger do to you?” she asks softly. Nikolai sighs:

“He pushes me off the bed, he annoys me in the shower, he puts salt in my tea, he turns out my pockets, he makes my files float around the office, he-“ Nikolai casts a quick glance at Anya.

She looks like she doesn’t know whether to laugh or frown or be concerned. Nikolai feels small and looks away hurriedly:

“He’s annoying,” he concludes:

“I… I see…” she hums, thoughtful. “Does… does anyone else know about Jäger?”

“The priest and you,” Nikolai laughs sadly. “Klaus is… exorcism-proof, though he doesn’t like the scent of incense.”

“Maybe use more incense, then?” Anya suggests kindly. “To keep him away?”

“Mama had incense powder at home, but Klaus made it disappear…” Nikolai narrows his eyes at the memory of how self-important and triumphant the German had looked after snapping his fingers and _puf, the incense was gone_.

“Well, we can buy incense and you can burn it at home and in your office!” Anya chirps, like she has just found a solution. Nikolai knows it won’t work, but he’ll give it a try for her. He nods and smiles at her, and she smiles back.

They wander the city for a while. There is still debris and ruined buildings, artillery pieces and chevaux de frise, patrols and military vehicles. The morale seems high, though: news regarding the war are positive for the Allies and the front is at the doors of Germany, now. Too far from Moscow, too far from Nikolai.

Yet, Nikolai can’t help but look at the vehicles and patrols and momently imagine himself back in his tank, fighting the Germans.

Fighting Klaus on the bridge.

And watch him fall.

Does Klaus remember his death? Is that why he’s haunting Nikolai, because Nikolai _let him fall_? Klaus hasn’t accused him or anything like that, but… what if Klaus doesn’t know why he’s here? What if Klaus and Nikolai need to do something in order that Klaus can move on?

“Kolya?” Anya calls again, and Nikolai casts her a confused look. “Do you want to lunch, now?”

They find a nice park by the river. The Germans had been across the river – in fact, Nikolai intercepted Klaus, or Klaus would have been across the river. He shares the fact with Anya and she thumbs at his cheek proudly and tells him to stop thinking about the war, because that is no longer part of his life and he doesn’t need to worry about it anymore.

Which is true, but also not. Klaus Jäger is still (an unwanted!) part of Nikolai’s life, also a reminder of the war.

But maybe Klaus is war himself.

Nikolai tries not to think about it for the rest of the day. He wants to enjoy Anya’s company and the first _Klaus-free day in a while_ , but his concentration in keeping his mind off the German ghost shatters the moment he sees a large purple poster on a lamp: it announces a certain Madame Blavatsky, that specialises in spirits bound to earth and who happens to have an office in an adjacent street. In a normal situation, Nikolai would burst out laughing. He had never believed in ghosts and superior entities – no, logic and hard work and skill had been all for him. In that moment, however, Nikolai feels like the appearance of that poster was… _divine_.

He’ll bring Klaus for a tour around Moscow and then Nikolai will take him to that Madame Blavatsky so that they can figure out how to help him move on.

“Kolya?” Anya calls patiently, and Nikolai smiles at her apologetically.

The incense is forgotten – if Anya notices it, she doesn’t say a thing.

When they are in the train to return home, Nikolai starts to feel suddenly stressed as he realises he was gone for the whole day and left _Klaus Jäger_ alone at home. With his mother. Worry eases when he and Anya approach the house and it is intact; worry decreases when they walk in and Nikolai’s mother is knitting in the rocking-chair; worry vanishes completely when Nikolai peeks in his room and finds Klaus lying on his bed and staring at the ceiling.

At least, Klaus was polite enough to remove his boots and undress his uniform jacket…

“You’re back!” Klaus exclaims, lifting his head and flashing Nikolai a radiant smile. For a moment, they are no longer in Nikolai’s bedroom, but in Klaus’ quarters in the camp, and Anya is there with them, and Klaus has just called them colleagues and invited them to sit with him. Nikolai shakes his head and notices that Klaus had propped himself up on his elbows and is patting the space in the mattress next to him, like he owns the bed. “Care to join me, now?”

“I’m going to eat dinner first,” Nikolai replies, realising a bit too late his poor choice of words. Klaus graces him with one of his infuriating smug grins before Nikolai can close the door again.

When he returns, Klaus is still on the bed, still like he owns it. Nikolai frowns at that, but unfortunately he is already used to having Klaus either lying or sitting next to him. He is also used to having his pyjama tossed at his face and he no longer tries to catch it, because if he does, the pyjama will stop mid-air and hit him while he stares at it in shock.

“Did you miss me, Nikolai?” Klaus asks excitedly while Nikolai changes clothes with his back turned at the ghost:

“No,” Nikolai replies flatly. He is uncomfortably aware, however, that he spent almost the entire day thinking about Klaus. Once he is dressed in his pyjama, he turns around to face the bed and finds Klaus staring at him with a serious face.

Nikolai doesn’t like Klaus’ serious face.

It’s… _unreadable._ But, most times, it heralds doom. Klaus was doubtlessly petty in life, but death has just made him… pettier. Nikolai sighs, summoning patience, then walks to the bed and sits at the edge. He’ll let the wood shutters open and hopefully Klaus will find the sky more interesting and eventually move from the bed.

That is one thing Nikolai knows about Klaus Jäger: he likes watching the sky.

For the time being, however, Klaus seems determined in taking half of Nikolai’s bed. Nikolai lies down on his side, accommodates himself the best he can in the little space he has and closes his eyes.

It’s dark and there are crickets and an occasional owl outside. Everything is quiet and peaceful, perfect if not for the chill behind Nikolai. Does a ghost even need to sleep?

Nikolai hesitates, then opens his eyes again and looks through the window at the sky, sprinkled with stars:

“Klaus?” he asks quietly. The German hums. “How did you know where to find me?”

And why didn’t he appear immediately after his death?

“I didn’t,” There is a pause and Nikolai glances over his shoulder. Klaus’ serious face has changed to something akin to wary, as if he’s suspicious of Nikolai’s intentions behind that question. “There was this bright light on top of the stairs, and another at the bottom. I just… I didn’t want to climb up.”

Nikolai frowns:

“Why not?” But Klaus just shrugs, then smiles:

“You were there, at the bottom of the stairs.”

“That’s where you go to, when you disappear? To the stairs? Where are the stairs?”

Klaus’ smile dies and the German props himself up on an elbow. His face is serious again, but also purposeful. It reminds Nikolai of the face Klaus made when explaining him the training – though Nikolai had been enthralled by Anya, he had caught glimpses of Klaus’ face out of the corner of his eye.

And so Klaus explains that yes, when he’s not visible for Nikolai, it’s because he went to the stairs. He says that walking in the stairs is like walking into a tower of a castle, but that instead of spiralling staircases and occasional windows, there is nothing except for the steps and the two opposite lights. The stairs are dark and they always stand in the same space as Klaus, which leads Nikolai to assume there must be a reason for it – and that probably Klaus should go for the light on top of the stairs.

That is what they need to find when they go to Moscow.

“If I can see you, why can’t I see the stairs?” Nikolai asks, lying on his back and turning his head to look at Klaus. The German shrugs. “Why can’t anyone else see you, and hear you, and feel you?”

“I don’t know, but I like it that way,” A playful smile tugs at the corners of Klaus’ lips, making Nikolai frown:

“Why can you touch me while I can’t touch you?” That wipes out Klaus’ smile and he grunts that he doesn’t know. He is a ghost, he should know why and how he can make… ghost things!

But Nikolai is human, and even he doesn’t know the full extent of what he can do, or why he does it. Like… putting up with the ghost of his worst enemy. Which brings many more questions, and Nikolai turns on his side to completely face Klaus:

“Where you always like this?” he asks, and that has Klaus raising an eyebrow:

“Like what?”

“Like… like you are, now. Annoying, childish, petulant and incapable of being quiet,” And ridiculous and petty and talkative and… what else is Klaus, besides a generally nagging pain?

Klaus bursts out laughing at that. He is loud and he snorts, carefree, and it isn’t only his scars that stretch and wrinkle, but also the corners of his eyes. After his laughter quiets into chuckles, his blue eyes – _incredibly blue eyes_ – rove all of Nikolai’s face. He looks amused, like he possesses some piece of knowledge Nikolai doesn’t:

“Nikolai, death doesn’t change a man. I’m still myself,” he finally replies, folding an arm under his head. Nikolai’s turn to raise his eyebrows:

“So, you were indeed annoying, childish, petulant and incapable of being quiet,” he snorts. “You must have been loved by the crowds… Is that why you needed your pipe to help you blending in?”

Klaus stretches his lips in a smile – _indeed, he has a large mouth_ – but it doesn’t reach his eyes. Nikolai realises that maybe it wasn’t the nicest thing to tell a dead man. Yet, before he can apologise or change the subject, Klaus speaks again:

“I _didn’t_ want to be loved, Nikolai. I _didn’t_ need it,” He shrugs. “I _was_ a soldier, Nikolai. I took and gave orders, regardless of my feelings.”

“But a soldier isn’t a war machine,” Nikolai argues logically. “Nor a murderer. At least, not while he has feelings. Have you never wanted the brotherly love of your comrades?”

“Their admiration and respect was enough for me. They smoked, and that was my one concession into socializing with them,” And then Klaus’ gaze lands on Nikolai’s lips for just a moment, but it’s enough for Nikolai to notice – and, unwillingly, mimic Klaus and stare at his lips for a second.

And that is when he realises he is lying on his side, facing Klaus, and they are close enough for him to feel the cold coming off the ghost. Nikolai remembers them standing even closer, when Klaus went to fetch him from a prison cell and stepped into his personal space to touch him with a gloveless hand – though, it hadn’t been just a touch, or a pat on the head: it had been an actual caress. Nikolai had been repulsed for being touched like that by the enemy but, now that he thinks of it… he had also craved touch. _Harmless_ touch, a hand that wasn’t there to bruise him.

Hurriedly, Nikolai turns his back at Klaus again, grunts ‘good night’ at him and closes his eyes to force himself to sleep. He doesn’t want to think about the German any longer and hopes Klaus will be quiet.

* * *

When Nikolai wakes up the next day, the soft light of dawn is starting to creep in. He pushes himself to a sitting position, slowly, and looks around in search for Klaus – only to notice he is still… sleeping.

Do ghosts need to sleep?

Nikolai spends a moment staring down at Klaus, curled on his side with his head taking half of Nikolai’s pillow. Klaus looks… like he is truly deep asleep. He looks peaceful, too. Content, almost. His side rises and falls softly as he breathes – _something a ghost certainly does not need to_ – but Nikolai swears he never felt Klaus’ breath on his neck. The cold coming off him? Uncomfortably familiar by then.

But not… breathing.

And that is when Nikolai realises he’s reaching out to Klaus, to touch him, to feel his breathing. He immediately pulls his hand away and climbs off the bed carefully, because this is a rare opportunity to shower by himself and, with luck, have breakfast in lonely peace.

Showering by himself? Success.

Breakfast? Not so much: the moment Nikolai steps in the kitchen, he immediately sees Klaus, in full uniform, sitting at the table and amusing himself by piling sugar cubes. Nikolai narrows his eyes, suspicious of the ghost’s apparent innocence, and wonders what Klaus is plotting.

But Nikolai has breakfast undisturbed.

And Klaus is quiet when they go for the walk in the woods.

And Klaus is still quiet when Nikolai sits at his desk to read files.

“You’re quiet,” Nikolai eventually points out, after half an hour of silence. He looks away from the file to see Klaus sitting on the windowsill and staring outside. Klaus turns his attention to Nikolai and raises an eyebrow, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips:

“I can _not_ be quiet, if you want me to,” To better prove his point, Klaus jumps to his feet and makes his way to Nikolai’s desk, to sit on a corner of it.

Before Nikolai has the chance to explain that _no, he does not want Klaus to not be quiet_ , the inspector opens the door and walks in. He looks impressed that there are only a couple of files left on Nikolai’s desk and that the others are back on the shelves, organised. Nikolai smiles smugly at that:

“You shouldn’t do that while he’s looking, Nikolai…” Klaus scolds gently:

“Seems you have gotten acquainted with everything that happened while you were with the Germans…” the inspector notes dryly. He rocks himself back and forth in the balls of his feet and Nikolai feels the urge of explaining the inspector about _his time with the Germans_ , but bites his tongue instead. The war is easy for everyone who doesn’t fight it. “Since you are practically done here, you can go down to the archives and supervise the reorganisation of a section.”

Nikolai perks up at that. Sounds like a relatively important task, fit for his rank. He stands up from his desk, remembers to bring his cap along and strides to the door with Klaus by his side.

“The woman you went to lunch with last Friday, comrade lieutenant… is she your wife?” the inspector asks and walks with Nikolai along the corridor, to the stairs:

“Don’t answer,” Klaus says, but Nikolai smiles and does the exact opposite, because it seems the inspector is finally warming up to him:

“My fiancé.”

Klaus grunts. The inspector hums:

“Did you meet her… during your time with the Germans?” he asks, curious. Nikolai frowns at that, but nods:

“We escaped together,” And that has Klaus grumbling curses under his breath, like the episode is particularly upsetting to him. It probably is, it got him killed – yet again, he didn’t have to go after Nikolai, he didn’t have to personally command his troops.

The inspector remains silent as they walk downstairs. The staircase is in marble, and leads to the first floor, where the reception stands in the middle of the large entry hall. Nikolai has childhood memories of the police department being a summer palace of some noble family, before the Revolution. Used to his little wood house, Nikolai had always wondered about how the palace looked like inside, and as he follows the inspector across the hall and towards a smaller, locked iron door, Nikolai wonders if the underground level was already part of the original building, or a Soviet addition.

Nikolai has only gone once into the underground level, when he had been toured around in his first day of work. He knows there are cells, an interrogation room and the archives… but the cells hadn’t been that full the last time he had been there, and there hadn’t been muffled voices coming from the interrogation room. Nikolai doesn’t like to see the cells’ doors out of the corner of his eye: it reminds him of his own imprisonment, and though he knows there must be a logical reason for the cells to be full, he can’t help but feel sympathy towards those who are enemies of the Russian people.

“Where did all these prisoners come from?” Nikolai asks in a low voice, frowning. He doesn’t recall the village seeming… emptier. He also doesn’t recall being aware of prisoners being brought in. Klaus chuckles darkly next to him while the inspector shrugs:

“From all the oblast. Here,” He stops before the archive door and opens it for Nikolai, who steps in and can’t avoid a fit of cough.

The archive is narrow and cramped, with full-length cabinets and shelves full of files. It’s poorly lit with sickly yellow lamps and smells of humidity and dust. Some militiamen are busying themselves with pilling all the archives from section D on the floor, and Nikolai walks up to them through a corridor where he can hardly fit.

“You shouldn’t have told him about the woman, Nikolai…” Klaus scolds, walking through the cabinet with files. Nikolai frowns at the confusing sight and, deep down, is slightly jealous at how Klaus can just ignore obstacles.

But Klaus can also sit on and lean onto things. _How…?_

“Unlike you, I like to socialise with the people that work with me,” Nikolai grunts:

“You shouldn’t mix your private life with your professional life.”

“I didn’t mix anything!” Nikolai hisses and casts an annoyed look at the scarred face popping out of the files on the shelf. He narrows his eyes. “But… maybe you’re right!” Klaus widens his eyes at that. “You must stop coming with me, then. Can’t mix the pesky German ghost with police work.”

Klaus’ hurt expression is priceless and Nikolai smiles smugly at him.

But then Klaus is gone, the lights go out and _all the files come crashing down from their overloaded shelves_.

A simple task that would take a morning turns into work for almost a month. The inspector, still standing at the door, lets out an apoplectic screech at how his previously organised archive is a sea of mixed files and occasional loose paper sheets. Nikolai is stunned, semi-buried under files, and one of the militiamen fell off the chair he was perched on to access the higher shelves and hurt himself.

Nikolai can’t quite recover from the shock: the inspector is pulling him up and dragging him out of the archive, complaining about how Nikolai did something to his precious files and how he is no longer allowed near the archive. Once the inspector pushes him off the archive, he barks at Nikolai to send all the secretaries to the underground level to sort out the mess he made, and so Nikolai runs upstairs with increasing threats to his career.

Once he’s back to the quietude of his office, – of his _empty_ office – he spends a quiet minute feeling rightfully enraged at Klaus and his stupid and incomprehensible ghost powers. _Oh, he can’t wait to go to that Madame Blavatsky and finally discover how to get rid of that ghost!_

Yet, Klaus had been right when he had said that Nikolai shouldn’t let that inspector know much about his private life. The man clearly doesn’t trust Nikolai, and maybe sharing that his fiancé had also been captive under the Germans hadn’t been the wisest thing to say.

And maybe Nikolai could have kept for himself about Klaus being pesky. The German hadn’t actually done anything wrong until the moment Nikolai upset him.

Nikolai sighs and looks around the empty office. The files he was reading are still on his desk, undisturbed:

“Klaus?” he calls, lowly, worried that someone walking on the corridor might hear him. “Klaus?”

The German, however, seems to be hiding in the staircase he told Nikolai about. Nikolai sighs and sits heavily at his desk:

“The inspector thinks I ruined his archive…” Nikolai complains and looks without interest at the file he was reading. “I was joking… and it’s not like I can’t stop you from following me around…” At least, for the time being.

“I’m not pesky. I’m trying to help you!” Klaus’ disembodied voice says from behind Nikolai. Turning on his chair quickly, Nikolai tries to see the German, but can only hear his voice. The image that pops in his mind, of Klaus sitting on the steps like a pouting child hiding from view, is probably not the best if he wants to appease the ghost:

“Stop pouting, then…” Nikolai turns back to the file. “You won’t be of much help if you’re not here, don’t you think?”

Klaus’ hand suddenly covers the lines Nikolai is trying to read and he looks up, to see Klaus sitting on the desk and leaning slightly onto him:

“Then, stop disdaining my help,” he grunts.

“Who’d say Standartenführer Jäger is so delicate?“ Nikolai grunts in return, but smiles. Because who, indeed, would say that Klaus can’t take a little banter? The scars on his face are a testimony that he can take much worse.

Klaus makes a face and, like the petulant ghost he is, makes Nikolai’s file float away. Fine, Nikolai can read another and finish that one later. It is still impressive just how confusing – dangerous – Klaus can be, going from quiet to resentful in the blink of an eye. He must have been hard to put up with…

… And Nikolai stares at the file but doesn’t read it. The conversation they had the night before plays in the back of his mind and Nikolai turns his chair slowly to face Klaus, sitting on the windowsill and entertained with making the file spiral up and down.

“Did something happen to you? About mixing private and professional life?” Nikolai asks curiously. Klaus looks at him like he asked something particularly dumb. Then, Klaus shrugs and his expression changes to one of disinterest:

“Of course not. But I saw it happen to colleagues.”

Nikolai refrains from correcting ‘colleagues’ into ‘comrades’ and hums, interested in the sudden change of Klaus’ expression:

“You didn’t have any private life, did you?” Nikolai asks, making the effort not to grin, because SS-Standartenführer Klaus Jäger looks suddenly both pitiful and ridiculous.

Ghost shouldn’t – _couldn’t_ – redden, but Nikolai is very certain that Klaus has just gone a little red in the face. Besides, he looks suddenly embarrassed before puffing his chest and pointing at the silver oak leaf on the collar of his uniform:

“Well, I didn’t get to colonel this young by chasing after women and going to parties,” he says with a smug smirk. Nikolai’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline and his response is automatic:

“Indeed, it seems you planted an oak instead!” The immediate shock on Klaus’ face is priceless and Nikolai bites the inside of his cheek to stop himself from bursting out laughing. “Do you need to plant more oaks to have more leaves?”

Klaus opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. He blinks his eyes quickly, like he can’t quite understand what Nikolai means, and looks down at his collar with a frown, like the answer lies there.

Nikolai only realises that he’s laughing when his cheeks start to hurt. He doesn’t remember the last time he laughed this hard and, for a brief moment, he feels slightly terrified that _the German_ can do this.

Anya can’t. Anya makes him smile, of course, but she has never made him laugh like this.

Klaus’ dumbfounded face changes gradually as Nikolai keeps laughing: a smile tugs at the corners of his lips, the corners of his eyes wrinkle, his scars shift and change to accommodate his expression, his thin lips part to reveal a large mouth full of white teeth plus that ridiculous gap, and then he, too, is laughing and snorting, loudly and most ungracefully.

And it just makes Nikolai laugh harder.

And it just makes Klaus laugh harder.

But Nikolai forces himself to stop before someone hears him – oh, if the inspector happened to come into his office, he would probably think Nikolai was laughing for having disorganised the archive. That almost makes him laugh again and he bites the inside of his cheeks. On the other hand, Klaus is still chuckling and Nikolai feels extremely tempted to continue to… to do whatever he’s doing: is he making fun of Klaus or are they… having fun together?

Whatever it is, it feels… good.

Klaus said death didn’t change a man.

Releasing the inside of his cheeks to allow another wide smile, Nikolai leans back on his chair and tilts his head to the side:

“What does a colonel have to do with oaks, anyway?” Before Klaus answers – the _correct_ , boring answer, Nikolai proceeds. “German ranks are weird, Klaus: double ‘s’ with nothing, double ‘s’ with a stripe, double ‘s’ with a square, and so on and so on… until it leaves geometry and goes for biology, with those oak leaves!”

Klaus laughs hard at that. It will save Nikolai, albeit momently, from a lesson on German insignias. In the meantime, Nikolai confesses to himself that Klaus’ laughter isn’t that obnoxious.

And happy ghost Klaus is mostly quiet and peaceful – his excitement is easily manageable, he doesn’t peek when Nikolai is showering and Nikolai realises that _it will be fun_ to go to Moscow with Klaus.

Like they are… not friends and not comrades, but colleagues that get along.

That Friday, Anya finds Nikolai in the kitchen, making cheese and jam sandwiches. Klaus is sitting at the table, talking about his own preference of sandwiches, but interrupts himself with an affronted grunt as Anya makes to sit on his chair.

Nikolai snorts as he watches Klaus jump to his feet and stomp his way to the window and then cross his arms on the windowsill, looking outside with his pipe firmly secured between his teeth. Nikolai turns his attention back to the sandwiches:

“Are you going to eat all of that now? Your aunt is making dinner,” Anya says, curious:

“It’s for tomorrow. I’m going to Moscow,” And only then does Nikolai stop to think.

Because he is going to Moscow.

Not with his fiancé, but with the ghost of the German officer he fought with.

And what if Klaus is there because… because Nikolai let him die?

“Kolya?” Anya calls. Nikolai blinks his eyes and looks at her, to find her frowning and concerned. He must have made a face while thinking and he smiles nervously:

“I’m just going to Moscow!” he repeats. Anya smiles as well, apparently eased:

“Can I go with you? I’ll start teaching next week and we won’t have much time together and-“ Anya goes on, and Anya is right: with the two of them working, and with the school being in the neighbouring village, they will just see each other at the end of the day and weekends. Logically, Nikolai should want to spend as much time as possible with her.

“Nikolai…” Klaus snarls warningly, and Nikolai turns his head to look at him. Because Nikolai promised him they would go together to Moscow. Just the two of them. Nikolai would show Klaus the city, would brag about how the Germans never got there.

“Kolya?” Anya calls again, and Nikolai looks back at her:

“Ivushkin, you promised,” Klaus warns again. There are cutting edges to his voice that hadn’t been there in a while.

Nikolai Ivushkin did promise.

And yet, he also promised he would love and spend the rest of his life with Anya, even if they aren’t married yet.

For the first time since he defeated Klaus in that small village, Nikolai feels… _trapped_. His eyes jump nervously between Anya, looking slightly concerned again, and Klaus, looking… Nikolai can’t exactly put an emotion behind Klaus’ expression. What to do: upset his fiancé, the woman who helped him to escape captivity… or upset the ghost of the man who captured him? But Anya is understanding, if Nikolai tells her he wants to be alone, she will let him be. Yet, if he does that, he will be lying to her – and, as much as Nikolai hates to admit it, Klaus is right: a marriage cannot be built on lies. But what will Klaus do if Nikolai brings Anya along? Nikolai knows better than anyone that the ghost can… destroy things very quickly.

Think of it, and Nikolai owes Anya his freedom. If she hadn’t warned him about the mines…

Besides, Klaus craves company and attention. Nikolai thinks he can manage a needy ghost and appease him.

“Of course you can come…” Nikolai finally says, offering Anya a lopsided smile.

And the cabinet doors under the counter burst open as the pickles and kompot jars inside explode all at the same time with a deafening, strident sound. Thousands of tiny glass shards, pickled vegetables and fruits shoot in every direction. Anya practically flies from the chair to the opposite side of the kitchen, a scream never making it past her lips but her eyes wide in horror. Nikolai, startled, just stands there in shock and mushy pears and apples hit him square on the face. All the liquid from the pickles and kompot floods the floor quickly, like a wave washing up the shore.

Nikolai is rigid and rooted to the spot, blinking away dripping fruit and dusting off glass from his shirt and pants, momently forgotten that he can cut himself. Anya is saying something about a mop and Nikolai’s mother, emerging from the backyard, gapes and stares at her destroyed pickles and kompot.

Klaus is nowhere to be seen.

Guilt gnaws at Nikolai, not because he excuses himself out of the kitchen when he should stay and help to clean up, but because he broke the promise he made to Klaus. He hadn’t just told the ghost they would go to Moscow simply to fool him into being quiet. He had meant it. But Klaus doesn’t mean as much as Anya does.

Klaus isn’t nearly as understanding, too.

Closing the door of his bedroom quietly, Nikolai scans the room attentively, but Klaus isn’t there. Or maybe he is, in that staircase Nikolai can’t see:

“Klaus?” he calls and isn’t surprised that the German doesn’t appear. He sighs. “Klaus… I can’t lie to my fiancé, and if I told her I was going to Moscow with you, she would either think me crazy or suspect I would see someone!”

There he stands: former junior-lieutenant Nikolai Ivushkin, twice a tank commander, now lieutenant in the local police, in the middle of his bedroom, drenched in pickle water and kompot, pants covered in glass shards, talking to thin air as he _explains himself_ to the _ghost of his greatest enemy._

A ghost that doesn’t deign to appear before Nikolai (no longer excited about a second trip to Moscow) but that crawls into Nikolai’s bed later in the evening:

“That’s twice you trick me into trusting you, Ivushkin,” Klaus snarls, leaning against the wall across Nikolai’s bed. The room is dim, yet Nikolai can see Klaus perfectly, in colour and detail like the German is standing under daylight. Klaus truly looks betrayed – angry, too, judging by how his jaw is set. His eyes are locked on Nikolai’s with piercing intensity, but no matter how scrutinized Nikolai feels, he refuses to look away. He arranges the pillow under his head, instead, hoping to draw Klaus’ attention to it. Yet, Klaus just tilts his head to the side, never breaking eye-contact, and Nikolai has the uncomfortable feeling of being thoroughly studied by a particularly vicious predator.

Nikolai has already explained himself. Klaus’ understanding on the matter is none of his responsibility, and it seems the stubborn, demanding ghost doesn’t want to understand. Yet, this time, Nikolai admits he failed Klaus. He chews at the inside of his cheek for a moment, weighing his chances of avoiding doom – _because of course Klaus Jäger will do something to avenge himself._

Probably, torment Nikolai and Anya the next day, and for as long as he feels offended.

“I’ll make it up to you,” Nikolai says, though he has absolutely no idea of what he can do. He already goes for walks in the woods with Klaus, he already spends most of his day in Klaus’ company… and he no longer complains _much_ about Klaus occupying his bed and make him company while he showers.

Judging by the way Klaus flares his nostrils, the German isn’t convinced.

Nikolai groans and rolls his eyes, finally breaking eye-contact:

“What do you want, Klaus?” he asks with a sigh, watching as Klaus’ face goes from angry, to disappointed, to petulant… to unreadable. Nikolai is already so used to Klaus openly displaying his capriciousness that he feels immediately alert once he can’t _see_ Klaus’ intentions.

“I already told you what I want. I don’t like repeating myself,” Klaus replies in a tight voice. Not… clarifying at all, but he disappears before Nikolai can point that out to him.

 _Klaus Jäger chats like a machine-gun sweeping enemy lines, how can he expect Nikolai to remember everything he says???_ With a groan, Nikolai turns on his back and closes his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is appreciated and treasured!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone who's been reading this story. Here's the weekly update!

But he can’t sleep.

And, the next day, when he’s in the train with Anya, he isn’t particularly excited about going to Moscow again. He tries to hide it for Anya’s sake, and he’s either succeeding or Anya is allowing him to think so.

Besides, Nikolai feels… uneasy. He watches the landscape roll before his eyes as the train crosses the countryside, the reflection of his serious face staring back at him in the window. At any moment, Nikolai expects to see Klaus’ face floating outside with a malicious smile or hear his voice. Such doesn’t happen, and they arrive to Moscow undisturbed.

The city stands like the last time Nikolai saw it, and he feels immediately bored. Talking to Klaus about the Kremlin and the Red Square and tactical aspects of the Battle of Moscow would have been interesting – plus, rubbing the splendour of Russia on that scarred smug German face would have been delicious…

Talking to Anya about the Kremlin and the Red Square and discuss a battle would annoy her, because Anya is more interested in planning their future together than in revisiting the past. Plus… she’s Russian and knows the splendour of her motherland…

They stroll through the streets in companionable silence. Patrols pass by sometimes and Nikolai feels a strange nostalgy at the sight of them – how is that even possible to long for something he didn’t have the time to live?

How long was Klaus in the SS?

He said he made it to colonel under fifties, how old is – was? – he anyway?

Where did he fight before Nikolai stopped him? And after that?

“Kolya?” Anya calls quietly. Nikolai blinks his eyes and looks around, realises they are in a park and Anya is sitting on a bench while Nikolai is still standing. She looks concerned. “Is everything alright?”

No, it is not. There is an offended, vengeful German ghost lurking from an invisible staircase and at any moment he might appear to grace them with one of his childish antics.

“Yes!” Nikolai replies instead and sits next to Anya. He tries to change the subject by reaching for the sandwiches in the basket Anya is carrying, but she swats his hand away – hitting him with surprising accuracy and strength:

“Is it Jäger, again?” she asks patiently. Nikolai widens his eyes, trapped, and considers his options quickly: lie to Anya and dismiss her concerns, or tell her about Klaus and look like a lunatic fool?

And, since he’s thinking about it, how is he going to sneak into Madame Blavatsky’s office?

 _Worst, how will he do it with an angry ghost watching him?_ If Klaus were there and in a good mood, Nikolai could have lured him with banter – that was the original plan.

Klaus is weak for banter.

“Yes, I’m thinking about going to this psychic and…” Nikolai trails off meekly when Anya frowns, the concern in her face shifting momently to shock before going back to… concern. All of a sudden, Nikolai realises fighting off dozens of German tanks, alone, isn’t as daunting as explaining his plans to his fiancé.

After a judgmental moment of silent, Anya nods slowly, the frown leaving her face:

“Do… do you want me to go with you or…?” she asks. Nikolai sighs, overwhelmed with relief, and cups Anya’s face to kiss her passionately. Or maybe just peck her on the lips, because Klaus is probably watching, and Nikolai doesn’t want a pinecone or tree branch or dead bird or whatever Klaus finds more suitable to fall on them to break the kiss:

“Thank you, Anya…” Nikolai mutters, thumbing at her cheeks affectionately. For a moment, the luck he feels at having such a wonderful fiancé erases his concerns about his demanding ghost. Anya smiles and cups Nikolai’s face as well.

Nikolai feels better during lunch. He then leaves Anya in the park and makes his way to where he memorised Madame Blavatsky’s office is, in one of the little streets behind the Kremlin.

A rather shady street, and Nikolai is both relieved that Anya isn’t there and slightly embarrassed to be alone in that place. The street is narrow, the buildings are old and unkept and the few people he finds are dirty and look at him suspiciously. Madame Blavatsky has her office in a wooden building, lower than the neighbouring buildings. The white paint in the exterior is darkened and peeling, exposing the wood planks under it. The door is open, leading into a minuscule hall and a steep staircase going up, poorly lit and stinking of mould. The carpet covering the steps might have been red at some point.

Nikolai climbs the stairs, involuntarily shrinking as the dark walls seemingly close in on him. The stairs creak menacingly as he climbs and the two lopsided portraits on the wall look at him with disdain. On top of the stairs is another small hall and a pair of dusty purple (or ancient red?) curtains reveal an open door. Nikolai heads there and peeks in, to see a dim room where a woman is sitting at a table, playing absently with cards. The walls are covered with shelves with books, jars with shrivelled frogs and snakes, skulls of various animals and small ragdolls pierced by needles.

The woman looks like just the one in the poster: gaunt face, big eyes, crescent spectacles perched atop an aquiline nose, thin lips, purple turban decorated with stars and a high neck black dress.

“Madame Blavatsky?” Nikolai calls. The woman startles and looks at him with wide eyes, like she hasn’t seen another human being in a long time. She then nods and motions him to walk in and sit across her on a vacant stool. She piles the tarot cards aside, long talons scratching at the red towel that covers the table, and from some place on the floor next to her she produces a crystal ball that she places with pomp and circumstance on the table, between her and Nikolai.

“So, this is why you wanted to bring me to Moscow,” Klaus hisses. Nikolai turns around quickly to see the German standing right behind him, looking down at him with obvious disappointment.

“What brings you here, young man?” Madame Blavatsky asks, and Nikolai turns again to face her:

“I’m haunted,” Nikolai blurts out, suddenly very self-conscious of himself. “It’s the ghost of a man I… knew.”

“A spirit bound to earth, then,” Madame Blavatsky says in an understanding tone. She reaches for the tarot cards again, talons scraping across the towel. “And you want to know why he is haunting you.”

“I’ve already told you why I’m here, Ivushkin!” Klaus snarls, coming to stand next to Nikolai. “I can’t go anywhere because of _you_! You’re here, and we belong together!!”

“Well, maybe you’re stuck here because _I_ need to do something for you! Like forgiving you or going to where you died and-“ Nikolai snaps, frowning at Klaus, who looks… hurt. Nikolai has never seen that expression on Klaus before, and he doesn’t like it. “Don’t look at me like that!”

“Who are you talking to?” Madame Blavatsky asks, eyeing Nikolai like he’s a rare curiosity. Nikolai’s frown deepens:

“I’m talking to him, the ghost!”

“I have a name!!” Klaus complains:

“ _You_ talk to the ghost???” Madame Blavatsky sounds too shocked for someone who is supposed to deal with ghosts. Nikolai grows incredibly frustrated and pinches his nose bridge:

“Yes…! What is so surprising about that, Madame Blavatsky? Don’t you see him and hear him as well??” Annoyed, Nikolai points to his side, where Klaus is standing, his attention seemingly caught by the jars with shrivelled frogs.

The woman adopts an offended look:

“Young man, if there was a ghost in here, I would feel it!” And she goes on and on about her inherited psychic powers that allow her to feel ghosts and all kinds of demons and creatures most mortals don’t know about, but Nikolai is no longer listening. This was… an incredible waste of time. “Spirits cannot be seen or heard, young man! That is why they are called spirits! I specialise in sensing the energy of the dead and divining their silent thoughts and emotions and needs, because the dead do not speak!”

The jars with shrivelled frogs shatter all at once and dead frogs pour down on Nikolai and Madame Blavatsky, who barely have time to shrink in their seats before the crystal ball explodes in thousands of shards – and the lamp inside the ball breaks as well.

Madame Blavatsky stares in shock at her broken crystal ball. A frog lands on top of her turban and another on her left shoulder.

Nikolai looks around quickly, to see Klaus pacing in circles, angrily, like a caged beast about to leap at the bars. He carries the same hateful expression he had when he had looked up at Nikolai, on the aqueduct bridge, his blue eyes a punch of ice amidst the hot blood and grime on his face. Yet, now that Nikolai sees him and thinks of that seemingly distant episode, he realises there is more than just hate distorting Klaus’ features.

He is hurt.

Another crack and Nikolai changes his attention back to Madame Blavatsky, whose spectacles shatter and fall in pieces. She’s blinking her eyes quickly, shocked, and Nikolai rolls his eyes at that:

“See? He’s here. He always does this when-“ he starts to explain, but the woman goes from shocked to extremely offended:

“This was clearly a gas explosion! I must have left the stove on! There is no ghost in here!” With an imperious gesture, she points the exit with a talon. “You are wasting my time! Get out of here!”

Wasting _her_ time? What about _Nikolai’s_? He just infuriated his already angry ghost and left his fiancé alone in a park! Without further delay, Nikolai storms out of the cramped room. His furious departure comes to a quick halt at the steep stairs, and he hesitates just for a moment before starting to climb down:

“I could have killed you,” Klaus hisses from behind. Nikolai doesn’t look back – he doesn’t need to, the cold in his back tells him just how close Klaus stands. He grips the handrail tightly. “I can still kill you.”

There’s malice in his voice. Klaus can be incredibly expressive, but Nikolai has never felt those edges.

Holding tightly to the handrail, Nikolai goes down one steep step at the time. The paintings on the wall fall, the wood creaks ominously under his weight.

“I should have killed that woman,” Klaus proceeds, growling behind Nikolai. “I can kill her. Your mother, too. And your aunt. I can make your life hell, Ivushkin!”

“Been there already, Klaus…” Nikolai grunts. He never feared that German. He can’t fear him now.

Yet, he knows he should. Men respect what they fear and don’t underestimate it. Besides, Klaus isn’t just… someone Nikolai can deal with easily. Klaus is a ghost, a moody, temperamental, impulsive one.

Maybe to prove this point, Nikolai’s hands are brutally forced away from the handrail and he’s pushed forwards when he reaches the last step – Nikolai has no way of holding onto something or keeping his balance, and so he just falls forwards. He can soften the fall with his hands and a cloud of dust springs onto his face when his body hits the carpeted floor, making him sneeze and cough.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Klaus’ boots. He lifts his head to look at him… but Klaus is gone.

Nikolai can recognise a warning. Klaus _could_ kill him. And Anya, and Nikolai’s family. His throat goes dry and he pushes himself up, realising with growing distress that he shouldn’t have said anything while Klaus was threatening a killing spree:

“Klaus?” Nikolai calls quietly, dusting himself off. He finds a dead frog in the pocket of his jacket and, scrunching up his face in disgust, picks it up by a leg and throws it away. In the meantime, Klaus doesn’t answer, nor appears.

Deep down, Nikolai wants to believe the German will keep the quarrel between them. Afterall, it was Nikolai who broke his promise. But Anya might look guilty as well in Klaus’ eyes, and Nikolai darts off to the park where he left her.

Anya is feeding bread to a family of ducks by the river when Nikolai finds her. Relief would be instant, if only dark clouds weren’t gathering in the horizon.

Can Klaus control the weather?

Nikolai doesn’t want to find that out, and so he takes Anya back to the train station under increasing wind. She doesn’t ask him about the psychic, but Nikolai doesn’t tell anything about it either.

It wasn’t worth it.

Coming to Moscow again wasn’t worth it. He should have taken Klaus to pick up fruit to make more kompot, instead… Well, more kompot will have to be made, and pickles, and maybe that will appease Klaus. Maybe that will show him Nikolai doesn’t want to get rid of him.

_Doesn’t he????_

But how is it going to be, once Nikolai and Anya marry?

How on earth is Nikolai going to juggle his wife and an attention-starved ghost?

Nikolai is still silent when they take their seats in the train. Anya starts talking quietly, Nikolai makes the effort to listen. Yet, he distracts himself easily with the dark clouds catching up to the train, and with the landscape rolling by, and he startles when he feels Anya’s small and warm hands squeezing his softly:

“Kolya?” she calls patiently. Nikolai spends a solid minute simply staring down at her, and isn’t she the most patient woman ever? He offers her a lopsided smile. “Have you… dealt with Jäger?”

“Uh,” Nikolai replies eloquently. Tell Anya about how he was such a credulous fool and about the rain of dead frogs, or give her a polished version of the truth? Nikolai doesn’t want to lie to her and keep things from her… but he also doesn’t want to be diminished in her eyes. At least, not more than what he already is… “It didn’t work.”

“So, Jäger is still here…” Anya concludes. Nikolai nods and she hums, thoughtful. “I wonder… why him, Kolya? He arrived at the camp just a few days after you did and then…” She pauses, presses her lips together like she’s searching for words, then proceeds. “He was temporary in your life. Why him and not someone else?”

 _Temporary??_ Nikolai lets out a dry, joyless bark of laughter that startles Anya and catches the attention of the other passengers. _Klaus Jäger was not temporary_. No, Nikolai remembers everything like it was the day before: a cold winter dawn in 1941, his tank against Klaus’ – Nikolai against Klaus. That day marked the beginning of three long years of imprisonment, and during all those years, being transferred from camp to camp, suffering at the hands of various captors, Klaus’ face had been in the back of Nikolai’s mind. He never forgot that German, unlike others he had to look at for months. Klaus Jäger had always been there, even when Nikolai didn’t think about him.

He explains this to Anya. That Klaus has always been there. That Klaus is where everything starts. That Klaus is the reason why they are sitting together in that train, engaged and free. That Klaus makes things float and explode. That Klaus can actually be good company when he’s not attempting on Nikolai’s patience and sanity.

To all Anya nods, her eyes widening just a little as Nikolai goes on about how Klaus makes his files float around the office and smack him in the head. Only then, at the mixture of concern and horror in Anya’s face, does Nikolai shut up and realises he might have given Anya too much information.

It must be difficult to understand a loved one is haunted; it must be even harder to comprehend said loved one’s ghost is childish to the point of playing with files.

For the rest of the journey, they are silent.

By the time they arrive to the village, the sky is of an ominous grey and thunder growls in the distance. The atmosphere is prickly with electricity and the air is heavy. A storm is settling in for the night, and as he walks hand-in-hand with Anya, Nikolai wonders once more if Klaus is behind the gloomy weather.

He can’t ask him – or better, he can, but he doesn’t have an answer because Klaus refuses to appear and talk to him. If the ghost wants to be petty, Nikolai can play his game too and, with an offended huff, closes the window shutters. Klaus can stargaze from the roof, he’s a ghost and won’t be washed away in a storm.

* * *

For the following week, Nikolai is all by himself. He makes the effort to feel satisfaction in the fact that there isn’t a cold thing on his bed, and that he can close the window shutters at night to protect himself from the elements without risking to be awoken in the middle of the night by the sound of said shutters being yanked open so that Klaus can watch the sky. Nikolai also tries to be pleased about how he can shower peacefully without Klaus’ non-stop chatting and occasional peeking from behind the curtain. And Nikolai reasons to himself that having breakfast alone, in perfect quietude, is something he likes.

But Nikolai can’t argue with himself that work is enjoyable without Klaus. No, without him… _it is incredibly boring_. Klaus was right, the higher the rank, the more boring it becomes: reading and signing documents in his office, lunching alone in the crowded mess, staring at the walls in his office. Just another day without Klaus to provide distraction.

And now that Anya is teaching at the school, Nikolai just sees her for dinner and in the weekend.

The weekend is good, actually. The weather is enjoyable again and they can stroll in the woods without Klaus chaperoning/sabotaging them. But is he still pouting in the staircase? Or has he climbed towards the other light? Nikolai feels slightly offended at the thought.

A new week starts, and Nikolai mentally prepares for more boredom. Perhaps, Klaus has indeed left. It is for the best. The dead deserve peace, and so do the living.

Yet, the moment a young militiaman knocks at the door and walks in his office with a _new_ file, Nikolai senses something is wrong. And he’s not mistaken: the moment he opens the file, there is Uncle Vanya’s picture and identification sheet. The reason he has been brought in? _Sabotage_.

Nikolai feels a sudden panic. He knows Uncle Vanya since he was a child. Uncle Vanya is a good Russian – a good Soviet. He would never do anything to betray his motherland. Nikolai needs to intervene, this must be a misunderstanding! He jumps to his feet, doesn’t forget to grab his hat from a corner of his desk and leaves his office.

“What is it?” Klaus’ disembodied voice asks, curiously.

Nikolai is scared at the amount of relief he feels, yet decides against analysing it:

“Uncle Vanya was brought in,” Nikolai says as he trots down the stairs. Once he reaches the ground floor, he feels Klaus’ shoulder brush his and he turns his head to see the German walking next to him, full uniform and pipe firmly secured between his teeth.

Klaus certainly likes that pipe. Nikolai almost smiles at the sight.

Instead, he keeps his face straight as he crosses the hall to the staircase that leads to the underground level:

“His file says ‘sabotage’. I don’t believe that,” Nikolai mutters as they proceed to trot down the stairs. Klaus hums, thoughtful:

“Soldiers shouldn’t get involved in politics,” he says. Nikolai scoffs, suddenly not concerned about the stares he gets from guards and prisoners alike, and looks pointedly at the German eagle on Klaus’ sleeve. Before Klaus can be offended at how his wisdom was so easily swept under the rug, Nikolai adds:

“I’m not a soldier anymore. Police and army are different.”

“Once a soldier, always a soldier!”

Nikolai choses to postpone the debate. They are approaching the interrogation room, the corridor is narrow and Nikolai doesn’t want to be heard bickering with Klaus by the guard outside the interrogation room – during Klaus’ absence, he has noticed that guard is close to the inspector, and since the inspector isn’t particularly fond of Nikolai, Nikolai decides the guard is untrustworthy.

In fact, the guard seems reluctant to open the door. Klaus chuckles darkly at that:

“Tap your collar, Nikolai. It always works,” he advises. For once, Nikolai does as Klaus tells him without a counter-argument. And, by outranking magic, the guard grudgingly steps aside and opens the door.

The interrogation room is cramped and lighted only by a weak yellow lamp. There are no windows or ventilation system, so the air is heavy and stale. The inside of a tank smells fresher. The only furnishings are a stool for the prisoner and a chair for the interrogator. Nikolai has been told that room is used for preliminary interrogation. Further interrogation will proceed in one of the offices in the first floor, where a secretary takes notes, and where evidence and confessions materialise before the eyes of the prisoners, together with a document they must sign to admit their guilt.

Uncle Vanya is on the stool, small and frightened. It angers Nikolai, because nobody – authorities or not – have the right to bully an innocent old man. There are two militiamen behind Uncle Vanya and the inspector, sitting on the chair, grows red in the face when he sees Nikolai walking in:

“I didn’t call you, comrade lieutenant,” he snaps:

“I had to see it with my own eyes, because Uncle Vanya is one of the best Russians I know,” Nikolai snaps back and, ignoring the inspector, goes to stand between him and Uncle Vanya. He smiles kindly at the old man, who looks up at him, hopeful:

“They say I’m not doing my part in the kolkhoz!” Uncle Vanya explains in a meek voice. “But I’m old, and my back…! I have a paper from the doctor, but I didn’t have time to find it!”

“Don’t worry, Uncle Vanya. I’ll bring the paper and get you out of here!” Nikolai promises. He turns around to look at the inspector and sees that the guard, who was standing by the door, is now by the inspector’s side. He hears Klaus hum. “Comrade inspector, this man has a medical excuse to not work as much.”

The inspector shrugs:

“If you find that paper, then he is free to go,” he says. He dismisses both Nikolai and the guard with a gesture of his hand, but while Nikolai strides to the door, the guard simply darts off.

Klaus hums again and he and Nikolai exit the interrogation room:

“We need to go to Uncle Vanya’s house and find his document. The sooner we find it and bring it, the better for him…” Nikolai mutters as they cross the corridor.

That is when, amidst great ruckus, the guard comes crashing down the stairs and lands flat on the floor. A puddle of blood starts forming under his head, slowly, and Nikolai widens his eyes in shock and hesitates as another guard rushes to help his comrade:

“Ivushkin, the old man!” And, without even looking at the guard on the floor, Klaus leaps to the first step and starts running upstairs.

And Nikolai knows that was Klaus’ doing.

Yet… he can’t find it in himself to be angry, or horrified. Because, while Nikolai talked to Uncle Vanya, Klaus must have watched the inspector and the guard. The inspector must have tried to send the guard ahead. Nikolai walks past the man on the floor and follows Klaus upstairs.

He plans to march quickly to Uncle Vanya’s house, at the very end of the village, nearest to the woods. Instead, Klaus grabs his arm and tows him towards the parking lot where a few GAZ M1 are parked. Hoping that no one saw how suddenly his folded arm seemed to dictate his body’s direction, Nikolai trots after Klaus to give himself the appearance of someone going somewhere he wants to:

“What are you doing?” he hisses when Klaus simply walks through the nearest car to sit on the passenger’s seat. Nikolai looks around hurriedly, then opens the door on the driver’s side and gets in. “We need to-“

“Get to Uncle Vanya’s house before anyone else does,” Klaus nods, understanding, manoeuvring his pipe with lips and teeth to the corner of his mouth. He carries the same busyness-like expression of when he explained his training plans to Nikolai. Like he genuinely cares for Nikolai’s mission and wants him to succeed.

For a second, Nikolai wonders if Klaus had intended that with the training. If he had wanted Nikolai to live. He frowns at the thought, but pushes it to the back of his mind. There are more pressing matters at hand: Uncle Vanya… and the fact that it has been years since Nikolai drove.

But also… Klaus is there, seemingly to help.

“It’s faster on foot…” Nikolai grumbles, but he starts the car and grips the wheel firmly – and startles when Klaus bursts out laughing when the car dies.

Suddenly, his feet are on the brake and clutch pedals, his right hand flies from the wheel to the parking break to lower it, then goes for the gear stick – and, as Nikolai lets out an unmanly yelp while he seemingly manoeuvres the car out of the parking lot, the seat belt glides graciously across him and clicks in place innocently.

Nikolai watches in horror as he is already changing to fourth gear and speeds across the village on a dirt and pot-hole infested road. Pedestrians move out of the way and stare at him in shock:

“Klaus!!” Nikolai doesn’t quite know what he means: ‘Klaus, I don’t need you to drive the car’, or ‘Klaus, you can’t pretend this car is a tank’, or ‘Klaus, stop controlling my legs and hands’… or all of these?

The German seems extremely offended at how the car jolts at each pot-hole. He is sitting and being tossed around and hitting his head on the hood like he is physical, and not a ghost that can cross through obstacles. Whether he wants to share Nikolai’s misery or have the full Russian Roads Experience to later brag about the superiority of the Autobahn system, Nikolai has no idea.

Finally, the car stops near Uncle Vanya’s house. The gate in the small colourful fence is wide open, but the front door is closed. Nikolai doubts that someone could have possibly bested him and Klaus, but he still hurries to the door – that isn’t even locked, and Nikolai walks in with Klaus following close.

“Where are the walls?” Klaus asks in a shocked voice. Without glancing over his shoulder, Nikolai walks to the cabinet nearest to the bed and opens it. There are various contents inside, from clothes to ware, and he rummages through it, hoping to find the document:

“This is how a traditional izba looks like,” Nikolai informs. He feels paper in a pocket of a jacket and pulls it out hopefully, but it is simply a page from a newspaper:

“Yours has…walls. Different rooms…” Klaus complains as he goes to kneel next to Nikolai to peek under the bed. The sight of him, in polished boots, elegant uniform and holding his officer cap to secure it in place, makes Nikolai want to chuckle. Nikolai looks away and proceeds his search:

“Mama had it renovated. It looked just like this, but bigger, when I was a child. The bathroom was outside!” Nikolai smiles fondly at how he had enough room to play indoors in the winter.

Klaus probably thinks he is being discreet when he utters ‘primitive’. Nikolai rolls his eyes at that, but wonders briefly how different German houses are from Russian. And did Klaus grow up in the city? What was his life like before the Army? Did he join in his own free will, or was he called up for duty, like Nikolai?

From under the bed, Klaus drags a small, flat chest. Nikolai leaves the cabinet on hold and squats next to Klaus as he opens the chest. There are documents of all sorts, letters and a few portraits. Judging by the blank expression that Klaus makes as he starts handing over documents at Nikolai, the ghost probably can’t read in Russian.

But how can he understand it when Nikolai speaks? And how can Nikolai understand Klaus in return? Instead of asking, Nikolai goes through the documents silently, but doesn’t find what he is looking for.

He also doesn’t find it in the cabinet.

And it obviously is not inside the stove, but since it is a traditional stove and different from the modern one in Nikolai’s kitchen, probably Klaus was just curious about it.

The document is inside the pocket of a pair of trousers Nikolai discovers in a basket with laundry. He feels so accomplished he doesn’t even mind that Klaus drives them back in the same rushed way and he doesn’t even acknowledge the hateful look he gets from the inspector as he presents him the document. The last time Nikolai felt this euphoric, he had just evaded the German camp and had met Anya at an agreed-upon meeting place. It was the bliss of having momently overcame the storm. _Momently_ , because as he walks Uncle Vanya home with Klaus following them, he realises he has just gained more of the inspector’s animosity:

“He will get you for this, Kolyok…” Uncle Vanya mutters as they cross the village. Now that Nikolai had driven through it, making the same route on foot makes the village seem bigger. “How can I ever repay you?”

“You don’t need to worry about a thing, Uncle Vanya,” To prove his point, Nikolai smiles reassuringly at the old man. Yet, Uncle Vanya is right: the inspector will certainly try to do something.

Nikolai isn’t used to this kind of situation: he met straightforward people in the academy and didn’t spend enough time in the front to have to deal with intrigue.

Has Klaus ever had to deal with intrigue? If death didn’t change him, so he must have annoyed a lot of people, and annoyance is usually bound to cause intrigue. Nikolai glances over his shoulder, to see that Klaus is still following him, and hopes Klaus won’t disappear again. At least… before they have the chance to talk to each other a little.

When Nikolai walks in his bedroom, after dinner, and sees Klaus standing by the window and looking outside, he feels immediate relief. Which isn’t logical at all, and it feels both insane and wrong.

Klaus looks at him once he hears Nikolai close the door. His hat and pipe are on Nikolai’s bedside table, and though Nikolai knows he should feel outrage, he is simply amused. He offers Klaus a lopsided grin:

“We made a good team,” he compliments, because it is easier than thanking Klaus for his help.

For his presence.

Klaus shrugs and looks outside again:

“We _make_ a good team, Nikolai.”

Nothing follows, which Nikolai is thankful for. He doesn’t need Klaus to take him back to that night in the camp – he is already there, mildly aware of Klaus’ plans for the training while Anya had held most of his attention. But they wouldn’t have made a good team, because Nikolai would have never betrayed his motherland and Klaus would have never let him walk out that training alive. Or would he? He had promised to, if Nikolai performed…

Silently, Nikolai changes to his pyjama and crawls into bed. Klaus is still by the window, and Nikolai pulls the blanket up to his neck, to create an effective cocoon of warmth against the cool breeze coming in by the open window.

He closes his eyes, listens to the silence outside (broken by the occasional hooting owl) and drifts to sleep, slowly.

“I can get rid of the inspector,” Klaus says suddenly, startling Nikolai. With a sleepy grunt, Nikolai looks over his shoulder to see Klaus, in his shirt and breeches, lying on his side with his arms crossed in front of his chest:

“You won’t get rid of anyone…” Nikolai grumbles. He looks away from Klaus and rearranges his cocoon. “Where have you been?”

“Watching,” The immediate, slightly petulant tone confirms Nikolai’s suspicions that Klaus spent all those days in the dark staircase, pouting. Well, if he didn’t show when Nikolai called, that is none of Nikolai’s business – and he shouldn’t even feel guilty about having made Klaus pout. Because Klaus pouted by himself. That is one of the things Klaus Jäger is excellent at – creating storms in teacups and pouting.

Except that Nikolai promised him they would go to Moscow.

Back in the camp, Nikolai hadn’t promised anything. He had just saved Anya’s life.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters, voice low and aiming into the cocoon. But maybe ghosts have very good hearing:

“If your holiday plan was to get the dead frogs woman to get rid of me, then be sorry for yourself…”

Nikolai turns around to face Klaus, to look at his expressionless scarred face – no, not completely expressionless: his lower lip is pushed out slightly in a pout. Nikolai can no longer tell if Klaus is exasperating or ridiculous. Maybe both:

“My holiday plan was to rub on your face that you never made it to Moscow…” Nikolai replies in the same sulky, borderline dry tone.

Klaus looks extremely shocked for a moment. He widens his blue eyes and even raises his head from the pillow a little. Then, he drops it on the pillow again and bursts out laughing. Nikolai smiles brightly, cheered by the sound, and god forgive him… _he missed Klaus’ loud, carefree laughter and those embarrassing snorts_.

It quiets into a chuckle, until they are left staring at each other silently. Nikolai’s eyes rove Klaus’ face, like the German’s absence for a week erased a few details of his face from Nikolai’s memory.

Klaus’ features aren’t… unappealing at all. Just strange, with all those straight lines and angles and his large mouth and thin lips. It might take habituation to find _something_ other than his mesmerizing blue eyes and imposing scars. Nikolai can’t quite put an age to that face and his eyes rove down Klaus’ neck, that is usually hidden by the collar of his uniform – uncovered, it looks suddenly alluring. And so do the collarbones peeking from under Klaus’ partially unbuttoned shirt.

“Did you miss me, Nikolai?” Klaus purrs, startling Nikolai a little and driving his attention back to his face – namely, to the gigantic, self-important grin that stretches Klaus’ scars and wrinkles the corners of his eyes.

Yes, Nikolai missed him.

“No…” Nikolai grunts bluntly, though he feels little satisfaction for having wiped off Klaus’ grin. “But… I don’t mind having you around as long as you’re not blowing things up and making storms…”

Do ghosts beam? Because Klaus looks like he is beaming as he stretches and sprawls on the bed, resting a leg over Nikolai’s. It has weight and temperature, and though the weight is strangely comfortable, the cold seeps through the blanket and Nikolai curls himself further without complaints:

“I can do many things, Nikolai… but I can’t control the weather,” Klaus explains, crossing his arms under his head, like he owns it and Nikolai is the one lying in borrowed space.

The new piece of information is incredibly relieving. The last thing Nikolai needs is for Klaus to make the clouds pour down whenever he wants to go out with Anya on the weekends…

“That means you can pick up fruit and vegetables, because you ruined my mother’s kompot and pickles with your tantrum…” Nikolai raises an eyebrow at how a pout forms so easily in Klaus’ lips. “We can do it when I leave work, Anya won’t be there…” Like Nikolai expected, Klaus perks up at that. Maybe, the Moscow Offense can be forgotten. Or momently left aside – Nikolai is certain Klaus Jäger is not a forgiving man. He turns his back at Klaus again, arranges his cocoon and closes his eyes to sleep.

When he wakes up the next day, not only is one of Klaus’ legs still draped over his, but Klaus is still sleeping. That requires a delicate manoeuvre for Nikolai to remove himself from the bed without disturbing Klaus – not out of respect, not because Klaus looks incredibly peaceful asleep, but because, if he wakes up Klaus, Nikolai will increase his chances of being pranked.

Not that there is a successful recipe to avoid Klaus’ «playfulness», as the German calls it.

* * *

There is still fruit in the trees in the backyard and there are still a few cucumbers and carrots left in the vegetable garden. For a presumable city boy, Klaus is overly-enthusiastic (and way too competent) at picking up carrots and cucumbers. Nikolai wonders how many Polish and Russian vegetable gardens Klaus raided during the war, but doesn’t ask – instead, he climbs to the apple tree to get to the higher apples his mother couldn’t reach.

He doesn’t have the time, though: the moment he finds secure footing on a thick branch, all the remaining apples (pecked by birds and with worms) from that tree and the other one are already on the ground. In the blink of an eye, Nikolai too is back to the safety of the ground, and he watches, slightly dumbed, as Klaus proceeds to manually pick up apples into his basket. Klaus, with his polished boots, breeches and shirt with rolled-up sleeves.

If Nikolai’s mother goes to the window, or if a neighbour walks by, they will have the strangest sight of a floating basket and apples. Not wanting to be bested by a German, Nikolai grabs his own basket and starts picking up apples as well:

“Just the good ones, Klaus!” Nikolai exclaims in horror as Klaus reaches happily for an apple that is clearly inhabited – and stops mid-action to look at Nikolai like he has said some atrocity:

“All apples are good if you cut off the bad parts…”

Nikolai concedes that is a good point… and wonders briefly about Klaus’ background again. However, he refrains from questions – for the time being, at least. The mood between them is good and Nikolai doesn’t want to have Klaus pouting over something or overexcite him with this sudden unrequested interested.

When they go back inside with a couple of baskets of apples and cucumbers, Nikolai calls for his mother and has no answer. That means he is alone at home with a ghost that is visibly trying to contain his enthusiasm. Making pickles and kompot with Klaus will either be complete chaos or a free circus show, but if Klaus could return all the salt into the pot in the blink of an eye, he can also clean up the mess he makes.

“Using the stove to boil the water? The samovar will feel betrayed…” Klaus teases when Nikolai fills two pans with water and leaves them on the stove.

That is when Anya chooses to appear. Anya, who should be in the train, returning from school. Nikolai doesn’t know why his first thought is _it’s too early for Anya to be here_ instead of something in the lines of being glad to see her earlier than expected. The water, suddenly steaming and bubbling, overflows from the pans, and Nikolai automatically reaches for the stove to turn it down to make it look like there isn’t a suddenly enraged ghost in the kitchen.

Glancing over his shoulder, Nikolai sees Klaus standing rigidly near the table. His jaw is clenched, his nostrils flared and his lips pressed tightly, but it is the look of absolute disbelief in his eyes that strikes Nikolai the most. Klaus’ cap and pipe are nowhere to be seen, he isn’t wearing his jacket and the sleeves of his shirt are rolled up. Definitely not like an SS officer should present himself.

Nikolai looks at Anya again, whose eyes have landed on the baskets of fruit and vegetables:

“Do you want help?” she asks, and she is already leaving her purse aside and removing her jacket. Nikolai didn’t even notice how regal she looks when she dresses up to go to school – and right now he can’t compliment her:

“No!” Nikolai doesn’t want to upset Klaus again. But it’s not like he can simply refuse his fiancé’s help. “You must be tired!” Anya blinks her eyes, slowly. She has bright eyes, but the colour isn’t as stark and stunning as the blue in Klaus’ eyes. Nikolai forces a smile. “Homework?”

“I… do have a few things to read,” Anya replies reluctantly and picks up her purse again. “Is everything alright?”

No.

Nikolai is more concerned about not upsetting Klaus than about doing the right thing, which is not getting rid of his fiancé.

“Yes, I’m just… going to make kompot and pickles…” Nikolai turns up the stove again and points the pans with water for emphasis. Anya nods, casts Nikolai a rather dumbfounded look… and leaves by the open backdoor.

Nikolai watches her go. In the meantime, Klaus has sat at the table and is peeling an apple, like he is the embodiment of calm and innocence:

“Mama never peels the fruit for kompot,” Nikolai complains. Klaus puts down the apple and the knife and looks up at Nikolai with a serious face. “We need to wash it first. The cucumbers too.”

They carry out in silence, at first. Nikolai grows annoyed, because what is the point of refusing Anya’s help if Klaus is going to pout anyway?

“Do you like Sauerkraut?” Klaus asks quietly, like he read Nikolai’s mind and is showing he isn’t pouting.

Nikolai stops mid-action of slicing an apple and turns his head slightly to look at Klaus, who tilts his head down and raises an eyebrow, waiting for an answer:

“No,” And the bluntness of his answer – or maybe just the fact that he doesn’t like the thing – has Klaus widening his eyes in shock. Klaus Jäger is a ridiculously expressive ghost, and Nikolai bursts out laughing. The next moment, Klaus is laughing and snorting as well, and it just makes Nikolai laugh harder – in fact, he is laughing so hard he barely hears Klaus chuckle authoritatively that they will make Sauerkraut when Nikolai’s mother buys another cabbage. _Barely_ : he still hears though, and his laughter ceases immediately and he shakes his head ‘no’ vehemently. “ _No_ , there will be no German food in this house.”

To that, Klaus smirks and looks at him through half-lidded eyes, tossing apples in the boiling water with the carelessness of someone who can’t get burned. Nikolai reads the expression easily: _‘I’ll eventually convince you, later._ ’

He doesn’t recall Anya ever making that sort of expression. But then again, Klaus is a clingy ghost and Anya is a strong independent woman. Which is the best quality, and Nikolai loves that about her. _They love each other_. And they know that. And they aren’t annoying and clingy, and that is why Anya doesn’t need to look at Nikolai the way Klaus does. Like when he stares at Nikolai so intensely.

Like he can see Nikolai’s core.

Like he can read Nikolai’s thoughts.

Like he is a falcon and Nikolai a defenceless mouse.

It is both unnerving… yet thrilling, in a way. Nikolai likes to defy, to test, to stretch and break. And he knows Klaus does not like to be defied, although he seems to enjoy being tested – at least, in the battlefield. Now, when it comes to stretching and breaking…

Nikolai watches as Klaus pours the sugar into the boiling water and apples:

“It smells nice!” he comments, eyeing the kompot like he can drink it. Nikolai is almost certain ghosts are not supposed to drink kompot.

But he was also certain his biggest satisfaction in life would be to break Klaus, and turns out it isn’t.

Dinner that night is quiet. Anya isn’t speaking much about her day at school, Nikolai’s mother and aunt simply eat in judgmental silence and Nikolai, fearing he might have offended Anya by refusing her help, keeps to himself to avoid further misunderstandings. Besides, his family’s silence makes him uncomfortable. On the bright side, Klaus has headed to Nikolai’s bedroom, and for once the lights don’t flicker at the rhythm of German military marches and Klaus doesn’t speak over everyone else to get Nikolai’s attention.

He sure is a very demanding ghost.

A very cheeky one too, Nikolai concludes when he goes into his bedroom and finds Klaus sprawled in the bed in underwear, smiling in delight and clearly very pleased with himself. His uniform is folded neatly on the chair where Nikolai keeps his own uniform, his boots stand near Nikolai’s, next to the chair, and even his belt and officer cap are hung next to Nikolai’s, on the coat rack nailed to the door.

A tired, defeated sigh makes it past Nikolai’s lips and he slouches his shoulders. First he sent his fiancé away to make kompot and pickles with a ghost, and now that same ghost is in _underwear_ in _his bed_.

Not to mention that said ghost likes to spy on Nikolai while he showers.

Mild concern raises as Nikolai realises there might be other intentions behind Klaus’ annoying obsessiveness. The German did say they belong together, and he doesn’t want that Nikolai marries Anya.

But Nikolai remembers that Klaus led a lonely life, and maybe he just has awkward social skills and is over-excited about having a friend. Nikolai almost bursts out laughing at the thought that _he and Standartenführer Klaus Jäger (‘s ghost) are friends_. Yet, aren’t they?

In a way, it is rather terrifying how Klaus wormed his way into Nikolai’s life. It is also terrifying how Nikolai let him and isn’t even too concerned about it. He stares at Klaus, looking up at him, all smiles and practically melting in the bed.

Maybe Klaus Jäger is simply quirky.

Besides, _he’s a ghost_. That is basically the same as Nikolai sharing his bed with… nothing. Because ghosts are not bodies. Ghosts are nothing. Ghosts are nothing but annoying, sentient clouds of cold air that can take human shape and colours and speak. And touch. _Still, a ghost is not another human being._

“Do you want a pyjama?” he asks, grudgingly walking to the bed. Klaus beams and shakes his head. Of course he doesn’t want a pyjama, he doesn’t feel the cold… because he is dead, and so technically is not there. Fortunately, Klaus is silent and quiet for the night, and when Nikolai wakes up the next day, he showers and dresses alone, finding Klaus sitting calmly at the kitchen table where breakfast is set.

Since Klaus is in a good mood, Nikolai can worry about making things up to Anya. He’ll think of something while at work, since he has no more files to read.

Yet, when he walks in his office, there is one file and a closed envelope on the desk:

“We make a good team!” Klaus exclaims quietly, already standing near the desk and eyeing the file and envelope curiously. That is the first time he speaks that morning and Nikolai is slightly taken aback about it being something… that makes sense.

They make a good team, actually.

 _But maybe Nikolai shouldn’t jump to precipitated conclusions._ Their successful teamwork was simply finding Uncle Vanya’s papers and making kompot and pickles. Other than that… they bicker and try each other’s patience. The realisation leaves a sour taste behind, and Nikolai clenches his jaw as he strides towards his desk and sits heavily on the chair. He opens the file, suddenly uninterested, and sees himself looking back at him.

That is the profile picture Nikolai was taken once he returned to Soviet lines. The man in the picture beams, despite the cuts and stubble on his face. Nikolai remembers the photographer mocking him about how he didn’t look like a starving prisoner: back then, Nikolai had been offended. Sure, Klaus had kept him well fed, but Nikolai had been convinced hunger and misery were still visible on his face. Yet, looking at that picture, he does not seem particularly miserable, nor starved.

“What is this?” Klaus asks, sitting on the desk and leaning towards Nikolai. He reaches for the file, but Nikolai hunches over it. That is Nikolai’s file, with his name, age, rank, political background and small biography. Whoever left that file – _it must have been the inspector_ – is showing Nikolai that _the organs_ know very well he spent three years in German captivity.

And that he evaded said captivity looking better than the average prisoner.

This is all Klaus’ fault! If he hadn’t intervened, if he had forgotten Nikolai, if he had shot Nikolai (though it hadn’t been Nikolai facing the muzzle of Klaus’ pistol, it had been Anya… but if Klaus had shot Anya…), if he had won that last tank battle… then Nikolai wouldn’t be there, looking at his file.

But he also wouldn’t have gone back to his mother.

And he also wouldn’t be engaged to Anya.

He shakes his head, lets Klaus take the file and reaches for the envelope. He has a bad feeling the moment he touches it and doesn’t bother to use the letter-opener on the desk to open the envelope with a clean cut: he simply tears it open and pulls out a typed document. The first thing he sees when he unfolds the document is the logo of the Central Committee.

His hands are shaking slightly and his brow furrows as he reads the document once, twice, thrice.

“Nikolai?”

He looks up abruptly, to find Klaus looking at him with his head tilted to the side and raised eyebrows, waiting for an explanation. Nikolai doesn’t want to give one to him. Klaus is – was – a colonel, he certainly knows that getting his own file is not a good sign. Nikolai hurriedly snatches the file from Klaus’ hands and cradles it and the document against his chest, protectively: no Soviet bureaucracy will let Klaus know that Nikolai has been _discharged_ :

“It’s a mistake!” Nikolai snaps.

It can only be a mistake. By no means they can discharge Nikolai! He has done nothing wrong! He cannot be discharged! How will he give Anya the good life she deserves? They have a wedding to pay, and a house to buy, and-

“What is a mistake, Nikolai?” Klaus presses in a suspiciously quiet tone. Nikolai narrows his eyes and hunches over the file and document, as if by doing such he could protect the information from Klaus’ stunning blue eyes – so very blue, and searching, and piercing, and intense.

There’s a knock on the door and both men turn their heads immediately to see the inspector walk in. Nikolai immediately tosses the file and document to the desk, but he pushed the chair too far from the desk and, while the file lands with a ‘thud’, the document falls gracefully on the floor, with the typed side turned up – and, of course, Klaus changes his attention from the inspector to the document.

For a second, Nikolai considers ignoring the inspector and dive to the floor to get back the incriminating document. But he keeps his eyes on the inspector, who stands by the door looking awfully pleased:

“I see you’ve got your letter,” the inspector comments, and Nikolai understands there is no mistake. He clenches his jaw and balls his hands into fists. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Klaus standing up:

“I could break his neck,” Klaus states. Of course Klaus can break the inspector’s neck. But if he does, Nikolai will be in serious trouble:

“No,” Nikolai grunts as an answer. The inspector tilts his head up, smiling smugly:

“You should read the letter, then. The conditions are advantageous: not everyone can have such a generous monthly pension,” He starts to turn back to leave, but keeps looking over his shoulder. “And, once you’ve finished, feel free to leave the building by yourself.”

“Nikolai…” It is a threatening hiss, and to get the German’s attention, Nikolai bangs his fist on the desk. The inspector proceeds to leave, but Klaus looks at him immediately with wide eyes:

“Don’t, or I’ll be in trouble!” Nikolai hisses as well, casting a side glance at the door to be sure the inspector has, in fact, left. He keeps staring at the empty doorway in the silence that follows, not because he is expecting to see the inspector again, but because he can’t bring himself to look at Klaus.

Because Klaus will ask.

And even if Nikolai refuses to answer, Klaus will find out.

A memory flashes in the back of Nikolai’s mind. He is feverish yet freezing, with nothing but a uniform made of light fabric and an old blanket to shield himself from the humid, biting cold of the cell. Klaus stands before him, not in the camouflaged uniform he wears now as a ghost, but in the other one, the greenish-grey. He has asked Nikolai’s name and rank and is waiting for an answer, and though at the time Nikolai had thought Klaus was looking at him in despise and triumph, Nikolai now realises it was… interest. And, when Nikolai refuses to answer, Klaus’ face changes to disappointment and he aims his pistol at Anya’s head.

Nikolai could have lied. Could have given a false name, a false rank. Yet, he hadn’t.

Slowly, he looks at Klaus. He’s sitting on the desk, his back is hunched and his head it slightly tilted to the side. Both his officer cap and his pipe are on the desk next to him and his hands are crossed on his lap. He’s looking at Nikolai with patience, and there is just something in the sudden – and eerie – softness of his stunning blue eyes that tells Nikolai he is looking at an older man that has dealt with the failure of younger peers before. Nikolai doesn’t know exactly how many years (if there are years at all) stand between him and Klaus, but he has the impression he is looking at an older sibling that already knows he messed up.

That doesn’t make it easier on his pride, though. He looks down and gestures vaguely to the letter, still waiting to be picked up:

“I was discharged,” Either honourably or not, the document doesn’t say. Chewing angrily at his tongue, Nikolai bends down to pick up the letter, not even bothering to be careful to not crumple it:

“I can-“ Klaus begins, and that has Nikolai slamming the paper on the desk, angry. Of course Klaus ‘can’. He is dead. He can torment Nikolai, he can torment anyone he sees fit:

“Whatever you do, they’ll blame _me_ , and will probably arrest me,” Nikolai grunts. Klaus frowns and opens his mouth to speak, but Nikolai proceeds quickly. “And if you break me free, then they’ll kill me, and if I didn’t get to die in battle, then I refuse to die in front of a firing squad.”

Klaus is quiet for a moment. His mouth is closed again, thin lips pressed firmly together. For a moment, they are an ugly bitter line. But then the pressure is gone, and those lips are back to being just thin, with a sharp arch. Nikolai expects them to form a smile; instead, they form a pout:

“What will we do, then?” Klaus asks.

Nikolai is momently taken aback. He had expected some form of judgement – mockery, even. Not this… resigned understanding. And definitely not a question like that. Not what Nikolai will do next, but what _they_ will do next. Like they have been both discharged. Like they both did something that led them to be discharged – which they did, but Nikolai doesn’t regret having saved Uncle Vanya… nor does he regret Klaus’ help to do so.

It’s comforting in a way it should not be, and Nikolai allows himself to smile a little. Klaus replies with a brighter smile, like they have just shared a joke:

“You don’t have to do anything, it’s not you who…” But Nikolai trails off, and his smile dies as he realises that he will have to tell Anya he no longer has a prestigious job. Sure, he has been granted a pension, that is some income, but… how will she be proud of him? And how will he impress her family? And how will his own family react?

When he looks again at Klaus, the German has raised one eyebrow and is waiting for him to continue. Nikolai moistens his lips, then shrugs:

“You’re dead, Klaus. You don’t have to do anything,” he says and stands up. He takes the letter, his file and his cap and strides to the door, with Klaus already walking by his side. Their arms brush as they walk, and though they are practically the same height, Klaus leans in slightly – like everyone else can see him or hear him:

“But you are alive, and we are a team,” he reasons. It could be a complaint or a purr, but whatever it is, it has Nikolai frowning and biting the inside of his cheek.

They are not a team.

Nikolai and Anya should be. And she should have been the first to know the news. And it should be Anya’s hand brushing against Nikolai’s as he walks downstairs, head help up high as he looks ahead. Once he reaches the ground floor and walks straight to the main entrance, he is vaguely aware of how the receptionist and the militiamen there look at him. Some of those men, Nikolai knows them from childhood. There is silence as he walks away, and Klaus is mercifully quiet next to him.

Yet, that changes once they cross the doorway:

“I can blow up the building,” he states hopefully. Nikolai rolls his eyes at that and keeps walking, hoping that, by ignoring Klaus, he won’t actually do as he says. Truth to be told, Nikolai would not mind at all to watch Klaus grace his former comrades with his ghost shenanigans. _It would suit the inspector to be pushed down the stairs_. It would suit everyone to have to chase after floating belongings. But then the inspector and all his comrades would find a way to connect Nikolai to such supernatural activity, and Nikolai would be in serious trouble.

Besides, by requesting Klaus’ aid (of dubious efficiency, but undoubtedly satisfactory), Nikolai would be acknowledging and accepting their ‘team’. Nevermind the fact that he was the first to state they make a good team…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is treasured and cherished!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you people so much for your support!

Fortunately, the building doesn’t erupt in flames. Klaus grunts something under his breath, but Nikolai doesn’t pay attention to it, too focused on walking through the village with the gait of a victor. Logically, anyone who crosses paths with him cannot know that he has just been discharged from the police. As such, Nikolai doesn’t need to redden in shame every time he feels eyes on him. People are looking because they know him, because he is still wearing his blue uniform.

People in that village know Nikolai.

They know he went to the academy, and then to the front, and then made prisoner, until he came back. They know, because Nikolai’s mother and aunt told their neighbours, and neighbours talk, and news spread. How long until the entire village knows that Nikolai has been discharged?

Nikolai stops, allowing himself to slouch his shoulders and to look around his surroundings. He is no longer crossing the village, but by the lake where he and Anya had a picnic. It has barely been a couple of months since, yet it feels like it was years ago. Nikolai stares at the water for a moment, watching without interest how the sun reflects on the still surface and how the frogs nearest to the bank jump into the water, disturbing the stillness and filling it with hypnotic ripples.

“Nikolai?” Klaus calls again, quietly. Nikolai has never heard him sound so soothing, and he isn’t quite aware of how he turns himself towards Klaus. The German stands there, hands behind his back, in full uniform, chewing at the mouthpiece of his pipe. For a moment, Nikolai almost vents his worries on Klaus, briefly won over by the patient way Klaus looks at him. In the last second, however, he clenches his jaw firmly, stopping the words from flowing, and turns around to face the lake again:

“You can’t help me,” he says instead. Klaus and his brilliant military career have probably known no setbacks, since Klaus made it to colonel before his fifties. How old is he, anyway?

“Are you afraid of what the woman might think, Ivushkin?” Klaus asks. His voice is no longer soothing and Nikolai’s left eye twitches at the amount of poison the words carry. Or maybe Klaus is just posing a question and Nikolai is hearing things. Either way, Nikolai turns around again and jabs a finger in Klaus’ chest. It goes through, but Nikolai repeats the gesture again, being overly careful to make it look like he can actually touch Klaus:

“Anya would never think poorly of me, she loves me!” he hisses.

And maybe that is why later, after dinner, when Nikolai’s mother and aunt are in the kitchen and Nikolai calls Anya aside to tell her the news, the disappointment in her face hurts so much. Though, what she asks next hurts much more:

“Did Klaus get you in trouble?”

With a shocked gasp, Klaus’ head and torso pop through the wall, startling Nikolai, who in turn startles Anya. Klaus is in his undershirt, and Nikolai supposes the cheeky ghost has already made himself comfortable in Nikolai’s bed. Nikolai also supposes that the sheer mention of Klaus’ name can indeed summon him – that, or he was spying on Nikolai, which isn’t surprising.

He sighs and looks from Klaus’ aggrieved pout to Anya:

“No, why do you think so?”

“Kolya, if someone saw you… interacting with Klaus, or if you told someone about him…” Anya starts patiently, like the reason is obvious and Nikolai should know it. “It would look like… you’re not in your full capacity…”

“Will you truly marry a woman who claims you are insane??” Klaus snarls, offended in Nikolai’s behalf, and he steps completely through the wall. He is barefoot and in underwear, and Nikolai almost jumps at Anya to cover her eyes – but she can’t see Klaus.

“What do you mean, Anya?” he asks, forcing a smile at Anya but looking occasionally at Klaus to glare daggers at him and hopefully communicate to him that _he should really go back to bed and let Nikolai handle this_.

Anya purses her lips and crosses her arms. With her hair tied in a perfect bun, matching blouse and skirt and heels, Anya looks suddenly very imposing. Nikolai realises he somehow has gotten in trouble, and is both dismayed by it and utterly annoyed because _he has just gotten discharged:_

“I mean that, maybe if you get a psychiatrist to testify that you’re in good health, you’ll be admitted in the police again,” She sighs and moistens her lips. “Kolya… you’ve been strange ever since-“

“I’m not crazy!!” Nikolai stops himself right on time from pointing at Klaus and swear the German is standing there. Instead, he clenches his jaw, swallows down his disappointment, and crosses his arms as well. “I’ll go see a psychiatrist. I’m not hallucinating.”

But he won’t try and go back to the police, because it wasn’t ‘a hallucination’ that made the inspector request his discharge. Nikolai is a good man, he has principles, and he scared the wrong people. Not that he will explain this to Anya - at least, not in that moment. He hadn’t expected that reaction from her, and since she wants proof of his sanity, Nikolai will get it for her and then will tell her exactly why he was discharged (not mentioning that Klaus helped him, of course…).

Nikolai doesn’t want his family to understand something isn’t quite right between him and Anya, so he wishes her a goodnight and retreats into his bedroom right away, to avoid further conversation – or lack of it. Klaus walks next to him, like he can’t cross walls:

“I am most touched by that demonstration of true love…” he mocks, like it was his sanity that was questioned:

“She has a point, you make me look like a madman…” Nikolai grunts in response. He walks in his bedroom and slams the door after him. The German is already sitting cross-legged on the bed, like that bed is his and he has all the right of sitting there:

“We both know the truth, Nikolai,” Klaus replies, raising an eyebrow. “It’s the woman who doesn’t want to believe you.”

“I can’t blame her…” Nikolai snaps and casts an angry look at Klaus, refusing to once more acknowledge that _Klaus is right,_ that _Klaus understands perfectly_.

Klaus Jäger. SS-Standartenführer, annoying ghost and certainly the slightly insane one in the equation. He looks imposing in his uniform, with his back ramrod straight and stiff shoulders, yet looks incredibly ridiculous in underwear, sitting cross-legged on the bed with his back hunched and his head tilted to the side, like he and Nikolai are young recruits sharing gossip before going to sleep. Klaus’ face is regal, infuriating and stupid, and Nikolai narrows his eyes:

“You’re unbelievable!” he accuses, and it has Klaus’ eyebrows shooting up to his hairline – which is quite receding, which makes him look even more stupid and how did such a ridiculously expressive man get to colonel and Nikolai…

And then Klaus’ face lights up with a smile and he straightens his back:

“Am I not, Ivushkin?” he replies with a toothy grin, displaying his tooth gap in all its glory, and winks.

Against all odds, Nikolai bursts out laughing.

But he still has a psychiatrist to visit, to prove to his fiancé he is not insane. It seems he will finally fulfill the promise he made to Klaus about a trip to Moscow, just the two of them.

* * *

Klaus is quiet. Barely holding himself so. He looks everywhere in the train, like he has never been in one before (and maybe he hasn’t?), locks eyes with Nikolai for a few seconds, then is already looking somewhere else. The air around them is filled with unleashed tension – harmless, for once: not quite like a storm, but the expectation before receiving important news, something exciting and contagious despite Nikolai’s best efforts at collecting himself.

Once the train begins to move, Klaus focuses his attention outside. Nikolai smiles knowingly to himself, and indeed letting Klaus sit at the window seems to have been a good choice. He casts a look at the German, something he intended to be quick or Klaus might catch his reflection and decide Nikolai wants to chat ( _which Nikolai does not, he cannot chat with a ghost in a train with other passengers around them_ ), but Nikolai’s eyes linger.

Klaus doesn’t have a reflection. Nikolai seems him crystal clear, in perfect colours like they are under the sun, and Klaus looks solid and… real. But his face doesn’t show in the glass of the window, and Nikolai needs to bend forwards a little to catch the right angle to see that Klaus is smiling excitedly at the landscape. Nikolai would snort at the silliness of it… if only he could. There’s something endearing about the way Klaus watches the landscape, and Nikolai wonders if Klaus is the type to enumerate all the things he sees outside. He almost opens his mouth to tease Klaus about it, but then remembers: there are more people around. And so, Nikolai just leans back on his seat.

For the entire time, Klaus is quiet, in his little bubble of excitement that extends to Nikolai as well. Only when the train stops in the station does Klaus turn around quickly, with wide eyes and a serious face:

“Are we in Moscow, Nikolai?” he asks. Nikolai nods at that. “I don’t remember that landscape.”

“We came from the north. You were coming south when I stopped you,” Nikolai replies in a low voice, looking around discreetly to make sure no one is looking – and hearing him talk to a ghost. “And the land was covered in snow, how would you recognise anything?”

“I have very good memory, Nikolai…” Klaus purrs as he stands up to follow Nikolai out of the train. While they follow the other passengers and walk through the busy station, Nikolai refrains himself from asking something that suddenly pops in his mind. Only when they are outside in the street, with disperse passers-by around them, does Nikolai speak, still in a low voice:

“How did you find me in that camp?” Because there had been so many other prisoners, certainly some that had outranked Nikolai, too. He crosses the street with Klaus walking beside him, their shoulders brushing occasionally. Nikolai has no hurry of going to the psychiatrist and so decides he will show Klaus the city, first:

“I found your file, it had pictures. How could I ever forget your face?” Klaus sounds very pleased with himself. Nikolai bites the inside of his cheek, softly:

“Because there was smoke around us? And we didn’t necessarily stand face to face? And we were covered in grime and you had a beard?” Nikolai scoffs, to sound playful. But truth is that he hadn’t remembered Klaus’ face. Sure, a blur of beard and blood had been in the back of Nikolai’s mind during captivity, haunting his dreams, invasive and impossible to forget, but Nikolai wouldn’t have recognised Klaus if he hadn’t brought up that encounter.

“I was going to shave and cut my hair once I had gotten to Moscow,” Klaus grunts, frowning slightly. Looking at him now, it’s hard to picture him with a beard and unkept hair. “But I have excellent vision and excellent memory, Nikolai. I would never forget your face.”

“Creep,” Nikolai mutters, but a smile plays on his lips. He isn’t surprised Klaus has a sharp sight, or good memory: Klaus is obsessive and predatory, so he was either born with those abilities or he developed them through the years.

To that, Klaus pushes out his lower lip in a sulky pout, but shoves playfully at Nikolai’s shoulder. He stands in Nikolai’s personal space, but it no longer feels like an aggression. It’s a familiar presence, almost as familiar as Anya’s, and though Nikolai knows he should be concerned, he blatantly ignores it and leads the way to the Red Square. Next to him, Klaus looks everywhere with obvious curiosity, though he remains silent.

Only when they reach the Red Square and Nikolai stops on the sidewalk, does Klaus speak:

“Is that the Kremlin?”

“Yes,” Nikolai allows himself to smile smugly and looks at Klaus. The German is looking at the building with obvious fascination, and Nikolai can’t resist elbowing him discreetly – for a moment, it almost feels like Nikolai’s elbow finds a little resistance before crossing through cold air, but Nikolai doesn’t think of that just then. “The Germans were across the river. But you weren’t among them, Klaus…”

That has Klaus turning his attention to Nikolai. He narrows his eyes until they are two slits of icy blue, but then a smile stretches his lips. Klaus has thin lips and a large mouth, and the mess of scars on his cheek stretches and wrinkles and shifts. Nikolai wonders briefly if someone has ever found Klaus attractive (especially with those scars), because his eyes… his eyes are impressive, not just for the colour, but for their expression:

“I was not, Nikolai. I had to be evacuated to a hospital in Warsaw,” Klaus tilts his head to further expose his scars. He clenches his jaw, the gesture tensing and bulging some of the jagged lines, and Nikolai feels a sudden urge to raise a hand and touch Klaus’ cheek, feel the texture of his skin. But Nikolai can’t really touch Klaus, and besides the gesture being inappropriate, maybe Klaus wouldn’t like it – after all, _Nikolai did that_. “A nasty infection, see?” Klaus’ eyes are half-lidded, the expression similar to that of a cat Nikolai’s aunt had when Nikolai was a child.

The cat would give Nikolai that same look every time Nikolai approached it, and Nikolai was never able to discover when the cat meant to claw at him or let him pet it.

“At least you were in a hospital,” Nikolai replies. He had always opted for petting the cat, no matter how many times he got scratched in return.

Yet, Klaus doesn’t seem to be in the mood to argue. He simply looks at the Kremlin again, then to Nikolai, and shamelessly raises a hand to cup Nikolai’s face and thumbs at the Y-shaped scar on his cheek. Nikolai flinches and steps away, not because Klaus’ hand is cold… but because it is _Klaus’ hand, touching the scar on his face_. He almost knocks over a man that was passing behind him and excuses himself repeatedly, seizing the opportunity to not look at Klaus.

But he eventually has to, and finds Klaus in the exact same place, though his hands are behind his back and he is biting at his pipe:

“I’m offering to right the misery you went through, Nikolai,” Klaus sates patiently, raising his eyebrows and tilting his head for emphasis. Nikolai clears his throat and steps closer to Klaus again, so that they can talk as discreetly as possible – wouldn’t it be ironic if the psychiatrist Nikolai will meet later saw Nikolai talking (apparently) alone in the street?

“Through pranks and occupying my bed?” Nikolai replies, decided to take things to another path. They were supposed to be talking about strategy and tactics, not… not something that Klaus, despite the strange powers (such an unpleasant word for Klaus Jäger…) he has, cannot return to Nikolai: _time_.

Klaus scoffs at that, seemingly oblivious to Nikolai’s attempt at banter. For such a skilled strategist, Klaus is… dumb. Nikolai snorts at the dichotomy and starts walking across the Red Square, hoping that the magnificence of it will distract Klaus. However, Klaus seems capable of looking around in awe and still bug Nikolai:

“No, by making you happy!” the ghost exclaims, stops for a moment and spins around slowly, looking everywhere, then trots after Nikolai again. “We belong together, Nikolai! I can make you happy. I can give you what the woman can’t!”

“Such as…?” Nikolai rolls his eyes, almost regretting having brought Klaus along:

“Purpose, Ivushkin!” Klaus sounds particularly annoyed, like the answer was obvious and Nikolai failed to see it. They stop in the middle of the square, looking at each other with narrowed eyes, and Nikolai opens his mouth to explain to Klaus that, when he and Anya get married, they will have children, and Nikolai’s purpose will be to raise his children the right way.

Yet, in the back of his mind, he knows what Klaus means.

He remembers being locked in a cell, _bored_ because the Germans still kept him alive. His failed escape attempts had led him to accept that he would die - actually a fair price for having failed his first crew. The fact that it was taking so long had annoyed him. But then Klaus had appeared, offering to put him in a tank, with a crew. Make him a target for practice. And yet… it had filled Nikolai with a sense of purpose, it had given him the hope that he would be able to, at least, humiliate the Germans by completing the training.

Finding shells in the tank had made everything easier.

“You can’t, Klaus…” Nikolai replies flatly. Not anymore, because none of them has a tank. Klaus looks offended for a moment, only to look extremely determined the next. He nods, a defiant smirk tugs at the corner of his lips, and then he turns around and resumes walking across the square. Frowning, Nikolai walks after him.

After spending a moment in silence, Klaus finally gloats again about how the Germans still fought across the river, and that sends them into the topic Nikolai had wanted to talk about since the beginning.

Nikolai hasn’t talked about strategy and warfare since parting ways with his tank crew. He has missed the subject and, while he and Klaus walk leisurely by the riverside, discussing tactics and weapons and logistics like they have a map in front of them and troops to move around, Nikolai realises he… regrets a little… not having paid attention to Klaus, that night they met to discuss the training. He argues with himself it was a wasted opportunity to further show Klaus his talent. But it wouldn’t have been the same. He would have had to rely on Anya to translate the conversation, and half of his message for Klaus (the defiance and certainty of his voice) would have been lost.

He had noticed that before, that he enjoys being able to _talk_ to Klaus. The German isn’t despicable when he isn’t throwing tantrums and ‘playing’, as he likes to call annoying Nikolai. Only in that moment, however, when Klaus is talking and gesturing with his pipe in one hand, his head tilted towards Nikolai and his eyebrows raising at the rhythmical enthusiasm of his words, is Nikolai willing to admit he enjoys this. Talking to Klaus. Hear him.

And evaluate him.

Klaus talks with his mouth and his body, and if that didn’t betray his enthusiasm, his voice would. He has a pleasant, smooth voice, but that is also expressive. Nikolai tilts his head to the side, watching curiously as Klaus increases the speed of his speech and a smile tugs at the corners of his lips, making him show his tooth gap. Nikolai has seen this man stand among other officers, his expression closed except for his eyes, and he finds the enthusiastic side of Klaus Jäger much more likeable. He wonders if this is why Klaus had such a formidable career, besides his own military skills: was Klaus this open to his men, did he show them this amount of enthusiasm, did he make himself so approachable? Like this, Klaus could certainly inspire many to march forwards under enemy fire. Nikolai remembers that one night when Klaus had declared his despise for socialization, remembers that other night in the camp when they (Klaus) had talked about the training.

Is Klaus this open only to Nikolai? Nikolai realises he hopes so, because he enjoys it.

For a moment, he wonders if he would have ever made part of Klaus’ clique, had he stayed in the camp. He knows enough about the German to know he has the cheek and the lack of common sense to have done it, and the thought of it tugs at the corners of Nikolai’s lips.

“Nikolai?”

And Nikolai blinks to see Klaus in front of him, pointing at one of the anti-aircraft batteries on the other side of the bridge, a smile frozen in his face and both eyebrows raised:

“What?” Nikolai asks, realising with concern he wasn’t listening to Klaus _because he was thinking about Klaus_. “Don’t you know what that is? It’s called a battery.”

Klaus’ grimace shouldn’t be so funny, but it is. And extremely satisfactory. The fact that he assumes a defensive position and proceeds to enlighten Nikolai about his knowledge of Soviet weaponry is even better, because it opens the way to bickering, and Nikolai enjoys bickering with Klaus.

Because it’s fun.

Because it shows just how ridiculous Klaus can be, and as such, Nikolai won’t be enchanted by him.

Fortunately, the bickering stops when Nikolai goes to his appointment. The moment they approach the building, Klaus is instantly quiet – so much that, in the waiting room, Nikolai feels tempted to challenge him for chatting. Which would be a terrible mistake before a psychiatric appointment, and so Nikolai keeps to himself while waiting for his turn. When he’s called into the doctor’s office, he notices that Klaus stays behind in the waiting room, pacing back and forth, though he casts a few glances towards Nikolai.

For once, Klaus Jäger is a reasonable man and gives Nikolai privacy. Before walking in, Nikolai bows his head slightly in a sign of gratitude – and oh, he is indeed grateful about Klaus’ absence, because the psychiatrist bothers him with all sorts of annoying questions and noses around Nikolai’s childhood and imprisonment time. It is not a comfortable situation, and Nikolai gives his best not to go too deep into certain subjects (namely his imprisonment) because… these are things he doesn’t even talk to Anya about. Plus, the less he shares, the less material he will give the psychiatrist to label him.

A tortuous hour goes by, until the psychiatrist deems him mentally healthy and free to go. Nikolai leaves the office a bit too eagerly and, once he gets to the waiting room, he stops momently to look around and sees Klaus still pacing back and forth with measured steps, his hands behind his back and small puffs of smoke coming off his pipe.

Nikolai clears his throat and walks towards the exit. The next moment, Klaus is walking by his side and their arms brush slightly as they walk.

“And so?” Klaus asks once they are outside. Nikolai takes in a deep breath, feeling the pleasant sensation of an accomplished mission:

“We both know I’m not crazy…” he replies, then grins playfully. “And so does the psychiatrist,” And so will Anya, Nikolai thinks as he taps the pocket where he kept his folded report on how his mental health is unscathed.

Klaus’ expression changes suddenly to mischief and he drops his voice to a conspiratorial tone:

“You can volunteer into the army again, Nikolai… and make it back to the tanks,” he says.

Either his voice or his words send a shiver up Nikolai’s spine. For a moment, he forgets he’s in the middle of the sidewalk, in front of a psychiatric office, and considers Klaus’ suggestion (a statement, actually). Nikolai _can_ volunteer! He is healthy, he is relatively young, he already has some combat experience and the military discipline of the academy stayed with him. The world is too vast and the army and the police are separate entities, which means that, in the army, no one would know of his discharge from the police. When he volunteers, maybe they will come across his old file – _his old file from the army_ , not the one from the police – or, with luck, they will make a new one for him.

“I can make you a general…” Klaus adds, his voice lower, and Nikolai notices that, while he was distracted, the German has stepped closer and is standing right in front of him, so close that the visor of his cap brushes Nikolai’s forehead. The cap and uniform make Klaus look bigger, more imposing, though Nikolai knows they have the same height.

But Klaus does have impressive eyes. And this close, Nikolai can see how deep his scars are, and that his mouth is indeed large and his lips thin with a very sharp arch. He spends a moment observing Klaus’ lips, because usually, Klaus keeps them pressed together firmly – in that moment, however, his lips are parted. And it’s…

It’s…

It’s…

It’s ridiculous how Nikolai is just standing there and he turns away, looking down at his feet with a frown, suddenly embarrassed – obviously and solely because someone must have seen him _just standing there_ , like a lunatic:

“Sounds like a plan, Jäger,” he agrees and starts walking, without a proper direction at first, but then towards the Kremlin, where he knows volunteers can go to enlist. Klaus trots after him, smiling brightly, and Nikolai feels an urge of wiping that smile off his scarred face. Why? … _because!_ “I can still make Anya proud of me!”

The way Klaus stumbles and loses composure for a second should be hilarious, yet it isn’t:

“But-“

“And since the war is going well, maybe it will end before I’m sent to the front,” Nikolai proceeds to reason, because now that he mentioned Anya… he isn’t sure she will be happy about it.

“But the point of being a soldier is to fight!!” Klaus sounds incredibly shocked and comes to stand in front of Nikolai, walking backwards so that he can properly glower at him. “You are not a man to stay behind, Ivushkin!”

Klaus has a point:

“No, but I want to have a family with Anya.”

“A soldier cannot have a family!”

Nikolai stops. Klaus keeps walking backwards a little more and walks through a lamp post, only to run back to Ivushkin in two large steps. He already has his mouth open to say something, but Nikolai beats him to it:

“You’re wrong, and I’ll prove you wrong!” Yet, his voice lacks determination, and instead of looking defiantly at Klaus, he looks at him with… compassion. Because Klaus Jäger isn’t a bad man at all, and it’s a shame he didn’t get to live for something else besides his military career. The thought of Klaus living a family life through Nikolai should be unsettling, yet Nikolai feels like, suddenly, he has deciphered the reason why Klaus Jäger is there.

Klaus needs _to live_ besides the army and war, and Nikolai will help him with that, and give peace to his troubled soul, and then Klaus will be able to go where he needs to.

“I’ll prove you wrong, Klaus!” Nikolai repeats, full of determination, momently forgotten that he is in the middle of the street, talking to a ghost only he can see.

On his part, Klaus doesn’t seem convinced. He pushes his lower lip out in a sulky pout and doesn’t say anything else. They make their way towards the recruitment centre in the Kremlin, and this time Klaus stands by Nikolai’s side for the whole time: while he gives his name, while the doctors inspect him and take his height and weight, and while he waits to know if he has been accepted.

 _He hasn’t_. Maybe, his old file has been… updated.

Nikolai doesn’t even care when the glass in all the windows shatters and rains down on the doctors. In fact, for once, he allows Klaus to be upset in his behalf and show it.

“Well, at least we tried…” Nikolai mutters while they leave the building. A soldier walking past them trips mysteriously and falls. “That’s enough, Klaus… Let’s go home.”

* * *

Dinner that night is tense. Nikolai’s mother and aunt keep to themselves, and the realisation that they know something is off between him and Anya makes Nikolai uncomfortable and guarded. Anya keeps to herself as well, having only shared briefly about her day. She didn’t ask about Nikolai’s, and he’s grateful for it and keeps his eyes down on his food.

Klaus is the only one whose spirits are high. He paces back and forth, humming a song while expelling puffs of smoke from his pipe rhythmically. All things considered, it wasn’t a _bad day_ – Nikolai is even grateful that Klaus’ mood didn’t sour like his did. He is not grateful, however, that he has to go through that dinner while catching glimpses of happy Klaus out of the corner of his eye.

Once his mother and aunt start lifting the table, Nikolai stands up and decides it’s a good time to tell Anya that his sanity is intact. He calls her into the backyard, not surprised in the least to step outside and see Klaus already waiting, standing near the apple tree with his arms crossed behind his back, legs slightly apart and narrowed eyes. The pipe is gone and so is his content humming. Nikolai makes a face at him, but he no longer can bring himself to care. The night is chilly and quiet, dark as heavy clouds gather above them. Only the light coming from the open door casts some light in the backyard, and yet Nikolai sees Klaus perfectly: his uniform, his scars, his eyes. It’s eerie… yet somewhat comforting.

“Kolya?” Anya calls quietly and Nikolai turns around to see her standing behind him, holding her jacket tightly over her shoulders. She seems tired and looks at him with a serious expression, like she doesn’t expect much. Nikolai clenches his jaw and, from a pocket of his trousers, produces the psychiatric paper:

“I’m not crazy,” he says. He doesn’t like the tightness of his voice, but he also doesn’t like to be doubted. Anya takes the paper, unfolds it and reads it in the weak light coming from the kitchen. Her eyes dart quickly towards Nikolai before she averts his gaze again, her lips quirk in a small smile, she folds the paper and hands it back to him. Nikolai knows these mannerisms. Nikolai knows Anya is embarrassed, and he both wants to pull her into a hug and kiss her and rid them of all this awkwardness… and wants her to make something to rid them of it, instead.

“I was thinking you could meet my family,” Anya says quietly, finally looking at him. She has blue eyes, pretty and clever. But is it enough?

Nikolai frowns and looks down, to some point between their feet. They’re standing at arm’s length, neither stepping into the other’s personal space. The vacant space is quickly occupied, however, and Nikolai looks up to see Klaus standing between him and Anya. Klaus is tilting his head to the side and his brows are raised for emphasis:

“It’s a trap!” he warns. Nikolai refuses to look him in the eye and starts pacing around:

“When would that be?” he asks, cautious, and since Klaus is trotting after him hissing repeatedly about a trap, Nikolai takes the opportunity to look at Anya.

She looks hopeful, but that only clenches his chest:

“Next month? I need to write them and-“

Yet, Nikolai doesn’t listen to her, neither to Klaus’ warnings. That’s too little time to improve his current situation. Nikolai doesn’t want to introduce himself to the people who will also become his family as someone discharged from the police and refused by the army. What father would like to see his daughter married to a man who relies on a pension to provide to her? What child would look up to a father who’s jobless and useless to his country? What woman would want to be beside a man who lost everything?

What the hell does Klaus see in him??

“I’d like to wait some more,” Nikolai says. The look on Anya’ face is like a punch to the gut. “I want to find a job and-“

But it’s Anya’s turn to clench her jaw and glare at Nikolai. It’s intimidating and Nikolai knows he’s gotten himself in trouble (but maybe, he was already in trouble and just complicated his situation?).

“Excellent decision!” Klaus chirps behind him. Nikolai thinks it is, but judging by how Anya turns her back and walks into the house again, maybe it wasn’t. Nikolai sighs tiredly and pinches his nose bridge, at a loss of what to do. He feels things getting out of control, but he doesn’t have a driver to re-direct, nor a gunner to destroy targets. With slouched shoulders, he returns into the house – but his aunt (and Anya) are gone, and only his mother stands in the kitchen, looking disapprovingly at him.

There’s only so much a man can stand, and Nikolai can’t stand being looked at like that by his mother. Keeping his eyes on the floor, Nikolai hurries to cross the house to retreat into his bedroom.

And of course, Klaus is there already, in underwear, sitting cross-legged on the bed and looking cheerful. He parts his lips in a toothy grin, but his boyish charm is of no avail right now:

“Don’t,” Nikolai grunts and starts to undress.

Klaus doesn’t. Bless him. He even scoots away to make room for Nikolai to lie down. The window is closed, but still Nikolai feels a shiver than he knows has nothing to do with the fact that Klaus is under the blanket with him.

“You’re fighting the wrong war, Ivushkin. She doesn’t love you,” Klaus says suddenly, in an uncharacteristically serious tone. Or maybe that’s how his voice used to sound usually, whenever he addressed his soldiers and peers. Nikolai likes to think he’s the only to know how expressive Klaus’ voice can be. Either way, _curse him!_

“You never kissed a girl, what do you know?” Nikolai grunts. He feels Klaus‘ body tense behind him:

“I have!” To that, Nikolai glances over his shoulder. Klaus is frowning and his lower lip is pushed out in a petulant pout, and there’s a faint rosy tinge to his cheeks. Nikolai snorts:

“Of course. That pipe of yours was a gift from her, right? And it’s because of her that you wear that ring on your finger,” Klaus says nothing, just glowers at Nikolai and chews his tongue. He has blue eyes, beautiful and cunning. And more. Nikolai intends to look away, but in a demonstration of maturity, it’s Klaus who turns around and leaves Nikolai facing his back.

He’s childish and ridiculous and annoying and how did he even get to colonel… and he makes Nikolai laugh, despite everything. Klaus shouldn’t make him laugh, but he does, and Nikolai likes it too much to question it. Chuckling in amusement, he turns towards Klaus and reaches out to touch his shoulder. He knows his fingers will go through Klaus, that the German is a mass of cold air given colour and shape, that Klaus can’t feel it and that it is pointless. Still, Nikolai does it.

And his fingers find… _something_. Something solid. Soft skin with hard muscle beneath it. Something unnaturally cold, nonetheless. _But it’s something that wasn’t there before_ , and Nikolai grips Klaus’ shoulder and gives it a tentative squeeze. He’s _holding_ Klaus, _touching_ Klaus… until eventually his hand slips through and he pulls back, shocked.

Only then does he notice that Klaus is glancing over his shoulder with wide eyes.

They spend a moment in silence, staring at each other in the eye, until Klaus turns around slowly, to face Nikolai, and waits. Nikolai isn’t used to see Klaus waiting: the German is a man of action, of quick thinking and even quicker manoeuvring – and of hasty and risky decisions, too. But he’s still, his eyes still wide, and Nikolai raises a hand again to rest it on Klaus’ shoulder. If he doesn’t completely rest it nor push down, he can actually _touch_ Klaus. Things were not this way last month and Nikolai wonders briefly if Klaus Jäger can trick death and resurrect. He puts some pressure in his hand, and there it goes, into Klaus’ shoulder – so no, Klaus is still dead and will probably remain so… but what kind of ghost trick is this?

“What’s happening, Klaus?” Nikolai asks in a whisper and pulls his hand away, only to touch Klaus’ shoulder again. His skin is soft… but dead cold. It should disgust Nikolai, but it allures him.

“I… I don’t know…?” Klaus mutters and turns his head slightly to look at Nikolai’s hand. “I feel…”

Klaus _feels_. Nikolai knows that didn’t happen before, either. This is one of the longest days in Nikolai’s life and a little voice in the back of his mind (that sounds way too much like Anya’s) tells him he has had enough adventure. But Nikolai needs to do something, and he seizes the opportunity that Klaus’ face is turned slightly to pull his hand from Klaus’ shoulder and reach with his other hand to Klaus’ scars.

Yet, the moment his fingers brush rough and bumpy skin, Klaus disappears. Holding his breath and widening his eyes, Nikolai changes abruptly to a sitting position and looks around frantically, like he’s just woke up from a bad dream. It’s not before his eyes finally notice Klaus, standing rigidly in the middle of the bedroom, that Nikolai realises the mad rhythm of his heartbeat.

Klaus’ expression is… wary. He looks both dangerous and meek, but Nikolai never saw the appeal of playing Russian roulette. He sinks into bed, slowly, and pulls the blankets up again:

“I’m sorry,” he mutters. Nikolai shouldn’t have done that. He can’t think of a reason as to why he shouldn’t have, he just realises he shouldn’t have touched the scars. The next moment, however, Klaus is right behind him again, under the blankets, lying closer than before. The knowledge that he’s relatively solid makes Nikolai want to press against him for the sake of closeness, but Nikolai remains stubbornly still in his spot:

“I didn’t expect it, I-“ Klaus’ voice is quiet, but there’s urgency in it, too. “Nikolai?”

“Good night, Klaus,” Nikolai remains still, fights against the urge of turning around and reach for Klaus again.

After a moment of silence, he feels Klaus turn his back at him and hears him breathe out. And he, too, lets out a breath he hadn’t noticed he was holding.

Unfortunately, sleep doesn’t come. Nikolai lies restless, yet always still, and keeps his eyes closed while taking deep breaths. The wind howls outside, but there is no rain. Maybe in the morning, maybe the next night. He’s painfully aware of Klaus’ body next to his, cold and solid. Nikolai reasons to himself this poses no betrayal to Anya, because Klaus is a man. Men sleep together. They did, in the war. Nikolai had shared his bunk bed during his first year of imprisonment, before being put in solitary for all his attempts at escaping. The barracks were crowded, there weren’t enough beds, so the prisoners had had to share. This isn’t new and means nothing. The fact that Nikolai wants to turn around and touch Klaus means nothing. He’s simply curious. The German was _air_ until… until he started to solidify. Nikolai simply wishes to understand it, just like he wants to understand everything: he’s curious by nature and has always been, since he was a toddler.

It is not betrayal to his fiancé. Nor to his Motherland. _Nikolai is just curious_. Besides, who’d look for comfort in a dead cold body that still isn’t really there?

“Klaus?” Nikolai calls quietly. Klaus’ body doesn’t stir, but he replies immediately:

“Nikolai?”

A moment of silence follows. Nikolai isn’t sure of what to say, of what to ask. He opens his eyes, but the room is completely dark:

“So… can you still cross walls and such?” he asks. Klaus hums and pops up in front of Nikolai, startling him. He sees the German perfectly, sees his torso sticking out of the mattress, and then follows with his gaze as Klaus proceeds to pull himself out of the bed, float around the bedroom, cross the wall and stick his head into the bedroom again. Then, he disappears, and Nikolai counts one anxious minute until he feels Klaus lying next to him again:

“Everything is normal,” Klaus confirms, and adds cautiously. “But… I feel…”

Nikolai nods slowly against the pillow. Of course Klaus feels his touch, he had already guessed that… but hearing it from the ghost himself, it feels… _more real_ (how ironic!)

“I can feel you. Your skin, I could already feel you before… you’re cold…” Nikolai grumbles, uncertain. He looks at his fingertips, like that will give him back the feeling of Klaus’ scars. “Are you… could you do this, before? Be more solid?”

“No. I had never felt you touching me,” Maybe to make a point, Klaus scoots closer. Nikolai remains still, but is restless – especially his heart. He tells himself he’s simply curious, that it will be fun – and satisfying – to finally be able to _almost_ punch Klaus. By no means he wants to acknowledge _he wants to touch Klaus_ : shove at him playfully, rest a hand on his shoulder, shake hands with him… and feel those scars.

Nikolai put those scars there and he wants to admire his work.

But he already can touch Anya – could always, and that should be enough. He grunts another ‘good night’ at Klaus and presses his eyes closed, like that will make him fall asleep.

It does not, and when there’s light seeping in through the cracks in the wood-shutters, Nikolai changes immediately to a sitting position. He sees Klaus already in his uniform, pacing around with measured steps and a contemplative expression that changes to something akin to concern:

“You didn’t sleep, Nikolai,” he states and marches right to Nikolai, to sit next to him. Their knees touch – _touch_ , Klaus’ knee is solid enough to keep an ethereal pressure and for a moment, Nikolai doesn’t even breathe, lest he presses too hard against the ghost. Klaus’ face carries a strange expression, one that looks awfully like… interest, but not the predatory interest Klaus usually looks at Nikolai with. Or maybe, Nikolai is seeing things as he drowns slowly in those piercing blue eyes.

Indeed, Nikolai didn’t sleep because he was too busy thinking about… _Klaus Jäger._ Not about how to improve his situation. Not about how to sort things out with his fiancé. Exhausted, confused and angry at his luck, Nikolai suddenly decides this is all the ghost’s fault. ‘This’, something vague but that symbolises all of Nikolai’s misery. And since Klaus is the problem, Nikolai will address it by… running from it.

He doesn’t want to be around the German. He wants to go out with Anya, and sort things out, and go back to be happy. When was the last time they kissed? Or held hands?

“I want to be alone,” Nikolai blurts out, staring at Klaus with the most serious face he can muster. He watches as Klaus’ brows knit together, and how his large mouth bends downwards, and how his thin lips press tightly. Yet, in the blink of an eye, Klaus is no longer there.

And Nikolai’s knee feels suddenly cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... things are about to get... sad :')  
> (NO SAD ENDINGS UNDER MY FLUFFY WATCH, THOUGH! NEVER FEAR, DOOM IS HERE)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the delay, some college stuff got in the way! D:  
> Have some feels to make up for it.

Nikolai doesn’t feel accomplished.

He successfully convinced Anya to join him for a walk after lunch and, now that they stroll through the woods, Anya has relaxed and is talking about wedding dresses, something about traditional clothing versus the modern models in showcases. They walk with linked arms and in his other hand Nikolai carries a basket with fruit and sandwiches that he made. Summer is coming to an end, but the weather is still pleasant and, though dark clouds are gathering above the village, the air is dry and the wind doesn’t blow.

It’s a nice Saturday, but Nikolai can only clench his jaw and feel… that something isn’t quite right. He’s making the effort to listen to what Anya has to say about dresses, but his mind wanders often and he finds himself in battlefields, or behind a desk with a commissar cap resting next to his folded hands. In these daydreams, Anya is a name in the back of his mind, a memory that accompanies Nikolai across charred landscape in pursuit of enemy tanks, or a framed picture at the very end of his desk. There aren’t children, there isn’t a family. There is just Nikolai, accomplished, purposeful, free.

Nikolai notices they have reached the lake. Anya is talking about a list of guests, but Nikolai isn’t sure he has guests to invite for their wedding: he doesn’t know the whereabouts of his tank crew; his friends have either left the village or are militiamen, and Nikolai won’t want them to be present after the way they treated him during his short career as lieutenant; his family is his mother and his aunt.

And since when has Klaus needed an invite to be around?

That’s the first time, since that morning, that Nikolai thinks about the German. It angers him, but he can’t find a logical reason why. But he wants it gone, and so puts the basket down and turns to take Anya in his arms.

She raises her eyebrows, surprised at first, but then she smiles widely and wraps her arms around Nikolai’s neck. Despite the heels, she’s still shorter than Nikolai, and smaller, and her touch and warmth are familiar and comforting. Nikolai smiles, too, takes a moment to stroke her cheek ( _unscarred and smooth_ ), then leans in for a kiss. He hopes for fire – cosiness at least, but there is just… the feeling of lips on his. Determined to find it, Nikolai deepens the kiss, holds Anya tighter against his chest. It does the trick, or partially – he does feel something, some primal need that craves comfort and contact, a spark of arousal.

But it’s not arousal that Nikolai wants, and as gently as possible, keeping his smile frozen in place so that he won’t betray himself, Nikolai breaks the kiss.

Klaus is standing behind Anya, at a short distance. Nikolai doesn’t want to look at him, he wants Anya to hold him with her eyes and smile, but Nikolai escapes.

There is an odd look on Klaus’ face. Nikolai can’t quite decipher it: it could be disappointment, or betrayal, or… both? His body is tense, his jaw is clenched, his lips are pressed together, and his eyes are fixed on Nikolai. His eyes are what make his expression odd, like something hard, unbreakable… _broke_.

“You said I had a chance, Ivushkin,” he says quietly. Something is off about his voice. Like he’s in pain… like he’s tired. “I thought…” But he just clenches his jaw and stares at Nikolai, lost.

Nikolai had forgotten their deal. Because at some point, having Klaus with him, and sanding their edges, and finding safe footing around each other… it had been natural.

But it’s not like Nikolai had intended to stick to his end of the deal…

It’s also not like there was a deadline to that deal. Nikolai hasn’t married yet, why is Klaus… giving up? Nikolai feels suddenly rageful, betrayed. So much for a soldier! They need to talk about this once Nikolai gets home, they need to-

“Kolya?”

A second is all it takes for Nikolai to look from Klaus to Anya, and then back to Klaus – or, to the place where Klaus stood. The German is gone and the air feels suddenly charged with electricity, heavy and hard to breathe. Immediately, wolves howl from afar, and from the village comes the barking of distressed dogs. Nikolai knows something is wrong again ( _something he did, again_ ), and all rage and betrayal are replaced by concern and a hint of frustration – though, Nikolai doesn’t know whether he’s frustrated at Klaus, or at himself.

Yet, he promised Anya a pleasant day, and if he goes after Klaus, he and Anya will go back to the awkward place they have just crawled out from. In fact, Anya is already looking at him with a slight frown.

The weather comes to Nikolai’s rescue: the dark clouds above them collide among each other and rain pours down suddenly, compact as a wall; a sudden gush of wind makes them stumble and the air, still charged with electricity, is cold, biting to the point that rain drops sting. The expression on Anya’s face is of pure shock and she looks up at Nikolai for guidance – all he can do, however, is grab her hand and lead the way back. The path is quickly turning into mud and mist raises and snakes through the trees and around their ankles. Nikolai is running, blinded by the rain and the sudden darkness, and is aware he might be holding Anya’s hand with too much strength and that he might be going too fast for her – she’s wearing heels, after all. But the least he can do for her is to take her back safely to the village.

The more they run, the worse the storm becomes. Thunder roans and lightning tears through the sky with blinding light, followed by a deafening ‘crack’ that makes Anya scream. Nikolai guesses a tree was struck and keeps running, no matter how much he wants to slow down. But finally, they leave the woods – Nikolai would still run if only Anya didn’t tug at his arm with surprising strength, and so they walk quickly through the chaos: dogs bark and they can still hear wolves howling, the wind slams window shutters and makes the fruit trees in the gardens bend and wail. There is a scream, barely noticeable over the ruckus, then the high-pitched neigh of a horse followed by the thundering of hooves. Anya shouts a warning and tugs at Nikolai’s arm again, but to no avail: the two of them are knocked down by a terrified horse that charges past them and they fall face first on the mud.

Nikolai takes a second too long to go back to his feet. Realisation sinks in, that he _truly_ upset Klaus. But there are implications behind that, and Nikolai doesn’t want to acknowledge those just yet. He can’t even understand his heart, leave alone that of a dead man. With a grunt, he scrambles up, helps Anya to stand up and keeps towing her away, leaving behind the basket with sandwiches. Nikolai is not a man to dwell in ‘ifs’ and alternate realities, yet in that moment he wishes he could turn back time to that morning: he would have opened his eyes after a sleepless night to see Klaus pacing back and forth, he would turn his back at Klaus, he would grunt at him to close the window shutters and he would stay in bed and sleep.

They go in Nikolai’s backyard by the open gate and walk in the house by the kitchen. Nikolai’s mother and aunt are there together, talking over a cup of tea, and they grow immediately silent and stare in shock at them. Nikolai hasn’t felt this miserable ever since _SS-Standartenführer Jäger_ took him from his cold prison cell. He casts a sheepish look at Anya, soaked and covered in mud, but she is too shocked staring down at her ruined clothes to even notice. Nikolai’s aunt is quick to stand up, to walk up to Anya and steer her gently towards the door again. They leave hurriedly, while Nikolai’s aunt talks about a hot bath, and the moment the door closes behind them again, Nikolai’s mother demands to know why he took his poor fiancé to a walk in the woods when a storm had clearly been building up.

Thing is, there had been no storm that morning. There had been sunlight seeping in the room. Nikolai says nothing, just toes off his boots, rolls up his trousers, pulls off his socks and makes a beeline towards the bathroom. Yet, instead of undressing the moment he locks the door behind himself, Nikolai looks around with wide eyes:

“Klaus?” he calls. His voice is quiet, exhausted. He is made of flesh and blood and has been playing a war of attrition against a ghost – was it a war, though? “Klaus? Stop pouting, we need to talk.” He looks around again and walks tentatively around the bathroom. To make the offer more appealing, he starts removing his drenched and muddy clothes, dropping them in a pile on the floor – he can always wash it after. Nikolai’s eyes dart around the bathroom, frantic, and at any moment he expects to see Klaus stepping into view, with a sulky pout but a hopefully interested look on his face while Nikolai bares himself. _Nikolai can touch him, after all!_ “Klaus? Klaus, come on. Klaus?”

But the ghost doesn’t appear while Nikolai showers, nor when he has dinner with his mother, nor when he lies down in bed, nor when Nikolai lies awake and listens to the raging storm outside.

The next day, Klaus still isn’t there and Nikolai hasn’t slept for two nights in a row. He is exhausted, but his thoughts give him no break: he supposes the situation with Anya went back to square one (if not below that) and he knows there is an angry German ghost out there, pouting and possibly plotting revenge. Between the two, Nikolai has no idea who will bring him more misery, but from the tactical perspective, Anya is the one he should try to talk to first, because Anya is alive and _there._

Yet, Nikolai has no idea of what to say to her, and when he goes into the kitchen for breakfast and finds his mother waiting for him at the table, he feels twice as lost and thrice as ashamed of himself: after trying to be so careful to hide his mess, he has failed. And, turns out, not only about Anya – his mother confronts him with what everyone in the village already knows, that he was discharged; and next confronts him about how everything has been seemingly tense between him and Anya.

For three years, Nikolai had endured captivity: starvation, forced labour, the merciless blows of guards, the dark and the maddening silence of solitary. The helplessness that washes over him as he sits at the table, unable to look his mother in the eye, is the same that had gnawed at him, insistently, until there had no longer been bones and he had crumbled, stumbling out of a train and into the rain. Anya had been there, Nikolai remembers that.

But it hadn’t been her pouring down fuel and lighting a match.

The concerned (albeit kind) words that his mother speaks don’t quite get to him. Nikolai’s eyes, looking down at the folded hands on his lap, are focusing inwards and study maps and encrypted messages – but just how encrypted? It’s pointless now, and since Nikolai cannot undo what he did, he can still change course and actually _do something_. Even so, he doesn’t have the gut to look his mother in the eye when he tells her he won’t have breakfast because there are urgent matters to be addressed.

To his relief, his mother says nothing when he stands up from the table and marches decidedly towards the back door. He still walks with purpose across the yard. He slows down and hesitates, until he stops, tastes bile in his mouth and proceeds to knock at his aunt’s door. Nikolai had caught the cold flash of a scythe out of the corner of his eye: he had endured enemy fire, he had taken lives, he had been shot at, he had been a malnourished number, he had planned and risked and gambled. And through all that, he had been courageous – scared, but hiding it from the world. Standing at that door, however, he reeks of fear. Everything is easier in an armoured coffin, everything is easier when the mind is blank and hope gone, everything is easier with company.

It’s Anya who opens the door and she doesn’t even bat an eye. She steps out and closes the door behind her, and so they stand in the shared backyard, under the sun and prying eyes. There are remnants of the storm: mud, residual clouds, a chill in the air. They avoid eye-contact, and though Anya’s hair is tied in a bun and her skirt and shirt are elegant, Nikolai can’t help but see her like what she had looked like in the camp.

Except that… he can’t really see her like he had used to. He doesn’t mind learning to look at her, though. He doesn’t know if that is what he _really_ wants, all he knows is that, to some extent, he owes her (her?) his life. Deep down, however, he knows how everything will play out.

“The wedding…” he begins, but trails off, looking over Anya’s shoulder and keeping his eyes on the fence at the end of the backyard. She hums, crosses her arms in front of her chest and shifts just slightly to block his view – though the blockade is easy to overcome, Nikolai forces himself not to:

“Within one year,” She moistens her lips, her eyes grow skittish and ruin the trap. “How much… how much can someone change in a year? And over a lifetime?”

Indeed, they are strangers.

“I didn’t change,” But it’s a lie, and he realises it the moment he says it. He _is_ a changed man. He is older and harder, and his ideals go beyond patriotic duty. _He was good at what he did, wasn’t he? He could have gone far. He could’ve been an ace._ Anya admires him, obviously. Anya recognises his skill, doubtlessly. But she wants it tame, she wants a normal life. She deserves to: she deserves peace, and love, and a fulfilling job where she can use her intelligence.

Nikolai wants that for himself too, but he can’t have it anymore.

“But you’re also not the same man I met, Nikolai…” Anya replies patiently, and their eyes lock. “Ever since you started talking about Jäger-“

And Nikolai isn’t listening anymore. Too busy dipping his heart in disappointment. It all goes back to Klaus, doesn’t it? He admits he must have sounded lunatic… yet, he also admits he would have liked Anya to have been stronger than a ghost.

“Can you be stronger than him?” Nikolai asks reluctantly, fearing the answer. Can _anyone_ best that goddamned German? _Anyone_ besides Nikolai?

The sad smile accompanied by moist eyes and a quivering chin are enough answer. Even so, Anya collects herself, wraps her arms tightly around her torso and looks down:

“I don’t know. I can’t see him.”

Anya is a brave woman, and Nikolai doesn’t blame her for fearing an enemy she can’t see, study, evaluate. He can’t even blame her for thinking the enemy is in his head.

Even so, Nikolai can’t help that sharp sting as he watches Anya climb into the train with her luggage in a hand and her school bag in the other. She takes a part of him with her, a part Nikolai likes to think was his best, and leaves behind a jagged burst shell. Nikolai knows these can be smoothed over, sculpted, turned into art – he heard the stories of the men in the village, those that fought in the Great War, and held in his hands empty shells that had been repurposed.

Anya waves at him from the window and Nikolai waves back. The whistle of the departing train is muffled, the smoke and the busy platform are blurred. He must smooth himself over, but what for?

* * *

Despair comes first. He could have done better. He should have tried harder. He should have begged on his knees. Nikolai tells his mother and aunt what they already know, that there will be no wedding. He is too small for the vast emptiness inside him, and it scares him. He craves his mother’s embrace and his aunt’s kind words: this too shall pass, one day it won’t hurt anymore, there will be others, there is always time. Yet, it has been just two hours since Anya got in the train, it has been just one day since that talk in the backyard. Time passes too slow, the days have too many hours.

And nights are lonely.

Nikolai leaves the window open, curls under the blankets and closes his eyes, unwilling to stare at an empty room:

“Anya left,” he says, but there is no reply and nothing cold scoots over to him. For a moment, he wants to move on to the next stage and be angry: angry that Anya doubted his sanity, angry that she wasn’t understanding enough, angry that she gave up so easily. Nikolai also wants to be angry at Klaus, because this is all his fault. But ultimately, this is _Nikolai’s_ fault. Or everyone’s.

Unable to be angry but no longer desperate, the next morning Nikolai wakes up defeated. Anya is gone and there is nothing he can do about it. As for Klaus… maybe he, too, is gone, and now Nikolai is alone.

He has nowhere to go, nothing to do. He doesn’t bother to change from his pyjamas and eats breakfast without enthusiasm, he skips lunch by sitting at the window of his bedroom and looking outside, he barely eats dinner.

“Maybe you’re right, maybe soldiers aren’t meant to be anything else,” Nikolai muses that night, staring up at the ceiling. The window is open, the room is empty and there’s just him in his bed. He had had options, as a prisoner: try to escape, be captured and beaten; try to escape, be captured and killed; follow the other prisoners; attack the guards and be killed; exist and wait until the end – either of himself, or of the war. But Nikolai is no longer a prisoner (no longer a prisoner under the Nazis, that is), and he doesn’t know what to do. He looks around the room, absently, and his gut clenches so suddenly and tightly he rests a fist on his stomach. For how long will he have to wake up to an empty room? For how long will he have to keep the war for himself? The anguish is bitter and makes him squirm in discomfort under the blankets. But Nikolai has no battle to fight, and so it is pointless to anticipate tomorrow. Not that it gives him peace, nor helps him to fall asleep.

For the next two days, Nikolai forces himself to crawl out of bed. He doesn’t bother to change clothes, and to help his mother and aunt in the yard he just dresses a coat over his pyjamas. The food is flavourless and so he eats the bare minimum (more than when he was imprisoned, less than when he was imprisoned under Klaus). When not using all his energy to do useful work around the house, Nikolai sits on the windowsill and looks outside with unseeing eyes. Sometimes he thinks: he is _free_ , he could go somewhere else, start anew where no one knows him; he could meet someone else to replace Anya, and he could meet someone else to replace Klaus. But Anya and Klaus are extreme opposites, Nikolai is a pole and they are vines – indistinguishable, yet Nikolai knows exactly who is who.

Or so, he had thought.

On the third day, when Nikolai looks around his empty bedroom, he makes no motion to leave the bed and closes his eyes again, for the sake of not having to see _an empty bedroom_. His gut has been clenched ever since that failed picnic, and yet it still clenches some more. Nikolai swallows down bile and curls in on himself, protectively.

In one swift motion, Nikolai’s blankets are yanked back and he’s pulled to his feet by the collar of his pyjamas. There is no one there, but Nikolai recognises the chill in the air, and the authoritative way his body – no longer obeying him – is manoeuvred out of the bedroom. This rigid gait and angry stomping aren’t Nikolai’s, neither are the sharp turns out of and into doorways – and, for a second, Nikolai doubts the dishevelled, stubbly, and exhausted face staring back at him in the mirror is his as well. With mechanical movements, Nikolai collects the razor and foam from the cabinet above the sink. But Nikolai’s body is no longer rigid, and his movements aren’t mechanic anymore. With half of his face covered in foam, Nikolai turns around quickly, scanning his surroundings with wide eyes. He’s alone in the bathroom… and yet, he _knows_ Klaus is back, and he’s either watching, or sulking somewhere in the house… but he is back. Quickly, Nikolai turns to face the mirror again and finishes spreading the foam. With an anxious clench in his stomach and uncertain movements, Nikolai shaves his face, ignores the nicks, hesitates in front of the mirror, and eventually shaves his head as well.

Once he’s done, he almost recognises the man staring back at him. Almost. He runs into his bedroom, full of urgency like it’s a call to arms, and gathers clean clothes. With the same urgency, he returns into the bathroom, undresses and takes a shower – cold water, to wake up. Klaus is still nowhere to be seen, and yet…

In a hurry, Nikolai barely dries himself up before putting on his clothes – he doesn’t even notice his sweater is backwards and leaves the bathroom still arranging the sleeves. He strides into his bedroom and looks around frantically… but there’s no one there. His hope plummets, faster than a bomber in flames, making his stomach twist. Vertigo pulls him down abruptly, _but if the damned ghost pulled him out of bed, then he must still be around_.

The window is open and the world is dim outside. Nikolai’s inner clock is broken, yet he knows his mother must still be asleep. He keeps that in mind when he bolts from his bedroom and dashes across the house, to stop only in the kitchen.

Klaus is sitting at the table. Almost like that night in the camp: unbuttoned tunic, slumped, keeping his hands busy with a glass. Except that his expression is closed and unreadable as he locks eyes with Nikolai, and he chews slowly at his pipe, and the glass is empty. _But he is there, finally_. In a way, it’s ironic it is the German ghost that ultimately stands there with Nikolai.

Yet, Nikolai couldn’t be more grateful:

“You’re back,” he states in an even voice. If his mother wakes up and wanders around the house, this will be a lost opportunity. Nikolai has lost enough and he strides to Klaus, decidedly, pulls a chair and sits across him. Their eyes are still locked.

Silence. It’s loaded, ready to fire – though it feels uncalibrated, unreliable.

Nikolai expects a comment – ‘I told you the woman wasn’t for you’, ‘That was quite the marriage’, ‘See how she doesn’t love you?’, ‘Remember our deal?’

Their deal. Along the way, Nikolai had forgotten it. Klaus’ company had become natural, welcomed. Klaus was there because... because.

“Where have you been?” Nikolai asks, finally. Unlike himself, Klaus breaks eye-contact briefly, only to look back at Nikolai with an even more closed expression, built carefully to imitate the same expression he had carried when he had walked into Nikolai’s cell for the first time – had it been contempt, repugnance at the sight of Nikolai, or annoyance at seeing Nikolai so beaten?

“Watching,” Klaus’ tone is firm, matching the oak leaves on his unbuttoned collar. “Waiting to see if you could pull yourself together, or if you needed me to come to the rescue once more.”

That was more like the type of thing Nikolai expected Klaus to say. He would be angry at the German, if only he hadn’t brought it upon himself.

And if only he weren’t so grateful for having Klaus back.

Nikolai is proud and stubborn. He recognises that, sometimes easier than others, and sitting there, staring at the ghost of who he thought to have been his greatest enemy, Nikolai realises it took him too long to see his own pride and stubbornness. He still clings to the war to excuse his behaviour towards Klaus, when the German was alive and when he first appeared as a ghost. Yet, he recognises that Klaus, indeed, has pulled him once again – _twice,_ now – to his feet and has returned the fight in him.

“Thank you,” Nikolai is sincere, almost solemn. He keeps his eyes on Klaus and notices how those stunning blue eyes narrow for a fraction of a second, suspicious, before hiding behind nonchalance once more. It’s not much, but it’s still better than the broken look Klaus had given him, all those days ago, when Anya had still been there. Nikolai moistens his lips briefly, unsure whether to address the subject or not. He knows he hurt Klaus, but he too still needs healing. With a sigh, he stands up to make breakfast.

Klaus remains there, silent and looking ahead to no point in particular – his sight doesn’t even focus on Nikolai when he sits across him at the table again, and though disappointed, Nikolai is still grateful for the company. It has been some days since he last woke up so early, and despite the poor sleep, he feels energetic.

“Do you want to come for a walk?” he asks, looking up from his breakfast (it still doesn’t taste good, but it’s not so bland anymore) to Klaus.

This time, the German does look at him. He narrows his eyes slightly and a puff of smoke rises from his pipe, firmly secured by tightly pressed lips and a clenched jaw. He’s analysing Nikolai, and for once Nikolai doesn’t mind. He hopes Klaus will join him, because even if they don’t talk, at least he’ll _see_ Klaus is _there_.

Yet, before there is an answer, thunder roars and lightning tears the sky. Nikolai looks immediately at the window, expecting to see the world blurred through the glass - but it hasn’t started to rain yet. He turns his attention back to Klaus, who keeps studying him, and purses his lips:

“Or maybe we should just stay inside,” Nikolai states.

It proves to be a smart choice shortly after – a mighty storm rages outside. Nikolai watches it through the closed window in his bedroom, waiting.

Klaus is pacing around the bedroom with measured steps. He’s silent and plays with the pipe in his mouth, biting and sucking and having it travelling from one corner of his mouth to the other. He’s in full uniform, cap included, and Nikolai suddenly finds it infuriatingly formal.

And the silence, he hates it. Still, he doesn’t want to break it, not now. He doesn’t know how to, and between them, Klaus has always been the best at brushing off awkward silences.

Yet that day, Klaus doesn’t speak. He lingers in the house, but not in Nikolai’s bedroom.

The next day is the same.

And the next.

And when Nikolai lies down to sleep after yet another day of silent company, and when he looks around the bedroom but Klaus isn’t there, he realises he has successfully broken SS-Standartenführer Klaus Jäger. Indeed, Klaus resisted his tank being shot at, and resisted falling into his death, and resisted an Orthodox priest, and resisted handfuls of salt, and resisted Nikolai’s disinterest. To a point. Seems a (dead) man can only take so much. In a disappointing moment of realisation, Nikolai figures he not only will never have a fulfilling job… but he will also never have a fulfilling personal life: he successfully pushed away the potential woman to build a family with, and seems he has successfully pushed away the… potential man to build a lasting friendship with?

Nikolai frowns and turns on his side, shrinks under the blankets. He never quite understood what Klaus was after – in desperate need for company, sure, but… his intolerance towards Anya, the insistent closeness, that broken look on his face, the way he vanished… A new realisation dawns on Nikolai.

 _Nah, it can’t be!_ It just can’t. Not that. It’s impossible, it’s… To start with, _Klaus is a ghost_. Even if Nikolai was… felt… wanted… tried…?, _Klaus is a ghost_. But again, whatever Klaus was after seems to be gone now, he doesn’t even spend the night with Nikolai…

That thought shouldn’t be so… disheartening.

Emptying.

And it definitely shouldn’t be keeping Nikolai curled in bed when the sun rises. Nor should it keep him from at least looking up at Klaus, who stands next to him and bends down a little:

“Soldiers cry at night, Nikolai,” he states. The tone of his voice is strange, but Nikolai can’t tell why. He lifts his eyes to meet Klaus’, slowly. “It’s morning already.”

It is. But it will be yet another day of silent company and of simply… existing. Nikolai has spent three years existing, and he doesn’t like to exist. He prefers to live, yet it got once more snatched from him. No, not snatched: _he_ shoved it away, two very important people.

He notices on time, however, that Klaus is there and has just spoken to him. So maybe, this time Nikolai can still improve things. Slowly, he pushes himself to a sitting position, eyes locked with Klaus’.

“I don’t cry,” Nikolai grunts, clinging to the banter offered to him. It disguises something, and he and Klaus had always done well at addressing delicate matters under the protection of snarky remarks and poor jokes. “Tell me, soldier, when did you lose hope?”

And just like that, Klaus is immediately disturbed: his brows knit together, his eyes narrow, his thin lips turn downwards.

And just like that… Nikolai knows he scored. Or at least, that he showed Klaus he was aware Klaus was up to something. Now, on to Klaus’ reaction, which could be… anything, really. In his predictability, Klaus Jäger is awfully unpredictable.

A moment of silent tension settles between them, and yet this is the closest they’ve been in the last days, with Klaus sitting at the edge of the mattress, clenching his jaw and chewing at the inside of his cheek, and with Nikolai sitting on the bed, his back hunched and the blanket pulled over his legs. Nikolai watches Klaus attentively, watches the way his stunning blue eyes are skittish and how a thousand emotions cloud them, until ice and steel settle in.

“You knew,” Klaus accuses in a tight voice, his face contorting in angry disdain. The damned ghost has the most distinctive features Nikolai has ever seen: pleasant in a moment and monstrous in the other. “You knew I admired your skill, and you used it to escape. You knew what I wanted from you, and you-“

“You won, damn it!” Nikolai snaps, suddenly recharged and full of energy. He raises his arms for emphasis as he speaks, but drops them, heavy and defeated, and his hands land with a soft ‘thud’ on the mattress. Klaus looks both offended at having been interrupted and _hopeful_. “Can’t you see it, Jäger? I couldn’t escape you, I couldn’t get rid of you, and…” A pause, a sigh. “… and I couldn’t fight for Anya.”

Klaus’ face is once again unreadable, but his eyes rove all over Nikolai, inquiring, prodding, piercing, pleading. Not that he has problems with asking and talking, no – the German is the cheekiest, has the most nerve that Nikolai has ever seen. On the contrary, Nikolai wraps it all and tosses it away, refuses to acknowledge it and let alone voice it. Things inside are scarier that a division of enemy tanks rolling at him and aiming at all the weaknesses on his armour.

“For all it’s worth, I didn’t want it to be like that…” Nikolai grumbles, clutching the blanket and tightening his grip until his knuckles are white. And of course Klaus Jäger doesn’t interrupt him and has him dragging himself through the thorns. “You’re welcome to stay. You’ve been, for a while….” He clenches his jaw, preparing the final blow on himself. “That’s why I forgot that stupid deal…”

All Nikolai gets is a stiff nod, experimental. For some reason, it annoys him that Klaus is so… collected. What’s up with this German, first trusting the Russian that nearly killed him and then - … Nikolai pauses his train of thought and tightens his grip on the blanket some more. Of course, he understands he broke Klaus’ trust twice by disdaining him. Standartenführer Klaus Jäger is a credulous fool, but seems his naïveté has finally reached the limit (he had mines placed around the camp, afterall…). Nikolai isn’t used to mess up like this and the fact that his effort is apparently not enough stings more than it should.

But before he can say anything else and either humiliate himself further or cause more damage, Klaus stands up and Nikolai is suddenly on his feet as well.

“It was never my intention to leave, Ivushkin,” Klaus says, and a pile of clean clothes hits Nikolai square on the face.

Thankfully, Klaus refrains from gloating about his victory. Yet again, Nikolai should already know Klaus is a decent man. He cradles the clothes in his arms and gives it another go.

“Then stop pouting, _Nikolaus_.”

It finally has the desired effect, and Klaus’ serious and guarded expression crumbles into a radiant, boyish smile, accompanied by a rather inelegant snort. It has Nikolai chuckling in return. It makes Klaus laugh in that annoying way of his. And that has Nikolai laughing as well. He doesn’t remember the last time he laughed, but he knows Anya had nothing to do with it. Anya never had anything to do with it.

Once they quiet into chuckles, Nikolai catches himself looking fondly at Klaus. He almost did it this time, and as a residual smile leaves his face, Nikolai bows his head slightly in gratitude. Once again, Klaus has given him a chance and pulled him out of a prison cell. Lowering his eyes, Nikolai walks past Klaus, towards the door. He shoves playfully at the German, expecting to shove at nothing but cold air.

His shoulder meets resistance, and he freezes and looks up at Klaus with wide eyes. But Klaus doesn’t notice, too absorbed in staring intensely at where their shoulders meet. Tentatively, Nikolai puts a bit more pressure – and then yes, he breaks whatever barrier there was, and is met by cold air. He looks at Klaus again, and this time their eyes lock.

Klaus looks content, and after a moment he quirks his lips in a teasingly smug smile:

“Not even death can do us apart, Nikolai!” he purrs.

Nikolai rolls his eyes at that. Whatever demonic stubbornness Klaus Jäger was bestowed with at birth, Nikolai is grateful for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is treasured and cherished!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so very sorry that this chapter is smol, I hope the content will suffice :')  
> Also, due to College Business, I'll change the weekly updates to monthly updates - this way, I won't be running late on the updates schedule.  
> So I'll see you on the 8th next month.

It grows easier from then on. Sections of walls are conquered gradually while undercover sapping attempts to undermine sections of those same walls.

Nikolai still thinks of Anya at times, when he leaves the house early at dawn with Klaus chatting animatedly next to him. He wonders briefly if this routine would’ve worked with her, but a minute later he concludes it wouldn’t have.

Because Anya didn’t speak of intricate strategy, war, duty, glory and death. She didn’t understand the beauty of it all.

Klaus does, and it’s just enough to keep Nikolai grounded while he waits and saves up his pension. Nikolai has a new plan that he concocted shortly after things began falling into place with Klaus: he’ll save up, and go to Moscow, and try his luck working in an armament factory. He’ll most likely be closely watched, but if he makes it, it will be fulfilling enough. For the time being, he doesn’t want to think about _what if he doesn’t make it_.

That morning, just when the sun is rising, Nikolai and Klaus leave the house and head to the woods, Klaus humming some German march in a content tone and Nikolai grumbling about his poor taste in music. That early, the ground is still frozen and creaks under Nikolai’s boots. It’s starting to snow already, and the nights are sufficiently cold; yet the snow melts away easily and the ice isn’t strong enough to compact the mud or to offer a steady surface on rivers and lakes. Nikolai’s breath forms little puffs of hot air and, stuffed inside his thick jacket, he’s comfortable enough. If the weather allows it, like that morning, he and Klaus go for a walk in the woods every dawn.

Aside from Klaus’ humming, the village is silent and dark. The sunlight must creep slowly over the treetops before reaching the houses, but at that time of the day the woods, too, are dark. Klaus’ humming stops once the trees surround them, and for a while they are silent as they head to their usual destination – the lake.

The woods, too, are silent. Except when Klaus starts to recite Little Red Riding Hood, clearly pleased with the atmosphere around them and adding very theatrical flairs to the several character’s voices. His face accompanies the expression of his voice and it would be ridiculously comical if only Klaus’ scars, angry and red and stretching and narrowing, weren’t a constant reminder of who Klaus was.

A Big Bad Wolf of sorts, cut open and vanquished.

Stitched closed and tame, though the bared fangs will always be a reminder of his true nature.

Nikolai stops laughing and thinks of the cat that had always scratched him when he tried to pet it, and how it had never put him off.

Finally, the lake. Mist hovers above the water and curls lazily around the trees. The first sunbeams seep through the foliage, but it’s colder there, so much that the grass is frozen hard and breaks when Nikolai approaches the waterside, shivering as his clothes and skin and flesh let the cold through right into his bones.

He steals a quick glance at Klaus, momently jealous at how he stands there in the light fabric of his uniform, pristine, imposing like he doesn’t need to fight against the urge of curling in on himself to preserve warmth. Which he really doesn’t because he’s a ghost.

Nikolai looks at the water, frowning:

“How was it like, to fall?” he asks quietly. It’s one of the many things that he has always wanted to ask Klaus, but even now Nikolai isn’t sure the topic is appropriate. Not that Klaus seems annoyed to be dead, but-

In the blink of an eye Klaus is there, in front of him, invading his personal space. It’s not offensive anymore, thus Nikolai muses whether this is an invasion or not. Klaus’ officer cap, pipe and gloves are gone, and he tilts his head as he lifts both hands:

“Are you sure you want to know?” He raises both eyebrows for emphasis, making Nikolai roll his eyes:

“I won’t use it as an excuse to try to get you to go wherever normal ghosts go to…” His voice comes out more solemn that what he intended to, and for a moment Nikolai wonders if Klaus will hesitate after being reminded that Nikolai had tried to do that.

Instead, Klaus’ face softens and he presses the tips of his fingers to Nikolai’s temples. Immediately, Nikolai is brutally pulled forwards, only to see himself on the bridge – yet, he grows distant, gradually, a dark shape against the sky. But Nikolai isn’t really paying attention to anything particular as he falls on his back, looking only at himself on the bridge. Everything else is a blur and all sounds are muffled. He’s aware of excruciating pain on his right leg, so intense it almost drowns all the other aches and throbs. He’s aware that while he’s trapped in an armoured monster, he’s also freefalling into nothingness. He can’t bring himself to look where he will fall and keeps his eyes on himself, on the bridge, a small smudge against the bright sky.

Nikolai is… disappointed. It’s an empty, hollow feeling that devours all thoughts except _make it quick_.

He then hits something with his back. The surface is hard and cold and Nikolai feels bones breaking, but before he can open his mouth and scream, his monstrous trap becomes the coffin lid, closing to never open again. Water, so cold it burns his skin and sears through his eyes, clogs his lungs and suffocates him. Nikolai is _terrified_ and tries to thrash his broken body in an agonized frenzy, the realisation that this is his end cruel and despairing.

He will not be missed.

He will not die a hero.

But at least, he’s dying by the hand of the man he admires most. The same man he wishes was here with him, so that he wouldn’t have to go through this alone. Yet, he’s glad to be the only one sinking, crushed against the bottom of the river.

Death comes slowly, unbearably so. Though Nikolai loses his senses to pain, to his irremediably broken body and to his lungs filled with water, he _knows_ he still lives, numbed, engulfed by the darkest wave until the most overwhelming nothingness finally takes over.

Nikolai is _terrified_ , and that is what he feels last.

He’s brutally pulled back and would’ve fallen on his butt if someone didn’t catch him by the arms. The mad hammering in his chest reverberates through his entire body and he’s shaking, taking in quick and shallow breaths and not very aware of his surroundings. Sweat runs down his face and he feels hot, until he’s lowered gently to sit on the ground – cold moist seeps through the fabric of his pants, and Nikolai looks around.

The woods, the lake, the blinding morning light and Klaus, down on one knee in front of him and watching him attentively. Except this isn’t Klaus, because Klaus Jäger, SS-Standartenführer, lies buried by his tank, many, many, many kilometres away, in a cold grave at the bottom of a river.

And yet he is _there_ , frowning and waving a hand in front of Nikolai’s eyes, moving his lips and producing sounds that Nikolai cannot understand. For the umpteenth time, Nikolai realises the ghost is Klaus’ spitting image, standing there in full colour and detail like he’s under the sun.

This is… Klaus Jäger. An enemy Nikolai wishes had never been his, because maybe then Klaus would’ve met a different ending. However, that would mean they wouldn’t be there.

“I…” He looks for words, averts Klaus’ scrutinizing gaze. Klaus’ last feeling as a living creature was _terror_ , and yet there he is, all smiles and bickering. “I’m sorry I let you fall.”

“ _I_ let myself fall, Ivushkin,” Klaus replies, tone clipped and with no room for arguments. Nikolai looks up at him and figures, _finally_ , that Klaus had never put that weight on him, and decides against claiming it for himself. Listening to Klaus more often might be a good idea…

Effortlessly, Nikolai is pulled up to his feet. He shakes frost and grass off his pants under Klaus’ piercing gaze, and while he’s at a loss of words, the German comes once again to his rescue:

“But now I have my chance!” he chirps, content, like he didn’t die horribly. Now, Nikolai can allow Klaus to tow him along the change of mood… or he can man up, take the opportunity Klaus presented, and have the talk they should’ve had when Klaus first appeared.

Nikolai sighs and his shoulders slump, the cold gnawing at him again:

“Why don’t you blame me?”

For a moment, Klaus looks at like him like he has said the stupidest thing. It’s a mix of exasperation and incredulity, until the ghost, too, sighs and allows his shoulders to sag – not that he looks less imposing in that uniform, and Nikolai realises he… quite appreciated that composure. What would it take to completely crumple Klaus?

“You bested me, Nikolai. What is there to blame?” Klaus tilts his head and narrows his eyes, takes one step closer and is scrutinizing Nikolai’s face like he’s scan-reading a document in search for a keyword. “You outsmarted me, outmanoeuvred me… you excelled, alone with only your crew and limited ammo. Can’t you see your own genius??” Those eyes narrow some more and Nikolai is trapped, unable to look away and risk missing the moment that magnificent, gelid blue is in full display again:

“But I let you fall,” Nikolai repeats in a hoarse voice, slowly registering Klaus has called him a genius. Nikolai knows his worth, yet Klaus’ open admiration never fails to surprise him – and maybe Nikolai doesn’t know his own worth afterall, and maybe he should really trust Klaus in this because… well, Klaus outranks (outranked) him, Klaus has more experience, Klaus has seen the war in the front.

With a scoff, Klaus purses his lips:

“I’m a soldier, Nikolai. I was meant to die,” Klaus shrugs, like it’s no big deal. Like he was _terrified._ Back then, it hadn’t been such a big deal for Nikolai, either: die for the Motherland, freedom or death – his life had meant little compared to the big purpose behind his actions.

Yet, there is no war anymore. Not there, at least. Not between them.

“I was a soldier, and I didn’t die,” Nikolai retorts, crossing his arms defiantly in front of his chest – and brushing Klaus’ own, dead cold chest in the process:

“Because you were the best, Nikolai…” And Klaus sounds so… devoted?, awed?, humbled?, all of those?, that Nikolai is momently weak at the knees.

He also wishes he had a hole to crawl into in shame, because he _finally_ wraps his head around the fact that SS-Standartenführer Klaus Jäger ignored sides and ranks to see Junior Lieutenant Nikolai Ivushkin as his own man, an independent unit with power of himself. Nikolai hadn’t been able to do that, Nikolai hadn’t been able to ignore Klaus’ uniform.

“But wouldn’t you have liked to live a little longer?” Nikolai proceeds, and it’s his turn to tilt his head.

To that, Klaus simply shrugs. It’s so dismissive and disinterested that Nikolai frowns, unreasonably offended:

“Perhaps if we hadn’t met, I’d have liked to live a little longer, make it to general. Maybe more, if I were lucky to impress the right people. I like to pull strings, but I don’t like my strings pulled,” A bored look crosses his face. Nikolai keeps forgetting Klaus juggled practice and bureaucracy, war and politics – and deep down, he envies Klaus for his composed grace at courtly manners.

“Was your life just… war? Wouldn’t you have liked to live beyond that?”

By the way Klaus assumes a guarded expression and starts pacing in circles around Nikolai, that is a disarming question. Nikolai has figured Klaus didn’t exactly have life and preferred to focus on his career, but even that is still a bit of a mystery. Nikolai had wanted a career, had wanted to fulfil his patriotic duty… but he had also wanted something beyond that. Peace, family.

“I was born in 1903, Nikolai,” Klaus begins, and part of the Mystery of Klaus Jäger is already solved – there are ten years between them. “When the Great War broke out, I wanted to be part of the Iron Youth, too. Most of my neighbours were conscripted and it was… annoying, to stay behind,” Klaus makes a face while Nikolai frowns and does the maths. Klaus would’ve been… fifteen, by the time the war was over. In Nikolai’s adult eyes, that seems way too young for a war. “My father was a businessman. He owned a furniture workshop and expected me to eventually run the business. Well… he lost the business, following the war,” Klaus stops pacing around and looks down at the snow – there are only Nikolai’s footprints – and is silent for a moment. It’s enough time for Nikolai to remember the day he and Klaus were picking fruit to make more kompot, and the German’s remark about how all fruit was good if the bad parts were cut off.

Klaus starved. Klaus must have lived his teenage years in poverty.

“My mother was a schoolteacher, and my father did small carpentry jobs. My sister and I attended school because our parents wanted us to go to college and be doctors, now that there was no business to run,” He looks up again and starts wandering off the clearing. Nikolai strides after him, listening avidly. “But you see, Nikolai… I really wanted to be a soldier, so on my eighteenth birthday I volunteered into the Reichswehr,” A crooked grin. “My parents weren’t pleased, said it was a dead-end and I wouldn’t be able to sustain myself.”

They’re back to the path that leads to the village. There’s already sunlight seeping through the branches, and the difference in light reminds Nikolai again that he’s cold. He doesn’t do a thing, pretending instead that he doesn’t feel the cold lest Klaus will stop his story:

“I made it to the Kriegsschule and to officer candidate. My hard work and merit alone,” Klaus proceeds, sounding very proud of himself. “I went to drills in the Russian border, and I was one of the first to make it to the Panzertruppenschule I – a school to train tank officers. I was the best of my course, Nikolai,” A pause for the sake of flashing a toothy grin at Nikolai, who rolls his eyes – it’s not like the ghost’s ego needs feeding. “When I finished, I was invited into the SS. I had caused the right impression in the right people.”

“And then you climbed through the ranks,” Nikolai comments, because he doesn’t need Klaus to tell him. He can see it: he can see Klaus finishing his course with a rank, he can see Klaus in a tank in 1939, and he can see Klaus… besting everyone.

Until they met.

A smug smirk tugs at the corners of Nikolai’s lips. But there are still things he wants to know, and he stops himself right on time to rub his hands together and divert Klaus’ attention to the weather:

“How about your family?” Not that Klaus’ professional life isn’t interesting. Would be more, if Nikolai weren’t jealous of how successful the German was. Klaus’ professional life makes Nikolai feel a wide range of things: admiration and jealousy at his achievements, pride at having bested him, guilt for having sent him to his death, satisfaction for having caught the eye of that irritating ace, humility under Klaus’ praise. The onslaught of feelings makes the inexistent private life of Klaus Jäger a much more fascinating subject.

Though it wipes Klaus’ smug grin off his face, and he sighs:

“My parents became supporters of the Nazis way before the elections in 1933. My sister didn’t like that, and after Hitler became Chancellor, she went to Switzerland. My parents didn’t forgive her, and didn’t forgive me either for keeping contact with her. Well…” Klaus clenches his jaw. “… trying to. She asked me to stop visiting her and my nephews when the war began.”

Nikolai frowns at that, the realisation that Klaus seems to have been close to his sister and had had nephews and that now he is _dead_ suddenly distressing. While dying, Klaus did think to himself he wouldn’t be missed:

“But… you kept in touch?” Nikolai asks quietly. He can imagine Klaus sending post cards, can imagine him taking great pleasure in writing about his feats to his nephews – all of a sudden, Klaus seems capable of being good with children.

There’s no answer, and Nikolai learns that Klaus did not keep in touch with his sister and nephews. A while back and he’d fill himself with righteous fury at Klaus’ pettiness, yet he now knows enough about the German to consider more than pettiness – Klaus was probably hurt.

Nikolai knows from experience that Klaus backs off when he’s sufficiently hurt.

Heck, since when is Nikolai an expert in Klaus Jäger???

“Does she know- does your family know you-?”

“I don’t know about my sister, but my parents must’ve gotten a letter. I can’t imagine it was very flattering, though. The same people I impressed years ago, I very much disappointed with that training,” And the absolute madman bursts out laughing.

Like he doesn’t miss his family, like he doesn’t regret the severed ties.

Like the fact that being dead is very entertaining.

Like the whole situation is hilarious.

It clicks on Nikolai that it doesn’t really matter to Klaus, because despite all his success, Klaus led a lonely and workaholic life. He refrains from asking Klaus is he ever made a ghostly apparition to the family he left (that pushed him away?), and tries to humour the situation instead in attempt at ignoring things he’d rather deal with after having mulled over everything Klaus has told him. Nikolai never liked to act without a plan:

“Did you live in a tank, then?” Nikolai asks, and laughs when Klaus’ laughing fit is renewed. He schools himself into a neutral expression once he sights the end of the woods:

“I lived in barracks and camped with my troops,” Klaus recalls fondly. Nikolai only stayed in barracks during his time at the academy and didn’t have much time to camp with his troops; though it wasn’t bad (anything is better than being imprisoned), he much prefers the comfort and privacy of his home.

The rooftops of the houses are gradually under the sun and the delicate ice covering roofs and fences is staring to melt. Nikolai finally gives in and rubs his hands together, grimacing at how cold they are – he then jumps out of his skin when Klaus, tactful as always, slaps him gently in the face with a leather glove.

Because of course the ghost, who does not feel cold, is wearing gloves. He carries a bemused smirk that Nikolai replies to with narrowed eyes.

They resume to silence during the walk back home, and keep silent when they walk in the house and Nikolai calls for his mother. There is no answer, which means she must have left – there are ambers in the fireplace, and Nikolai assumes that he missed his mother for just a few minutes.

Since he’s home now, he’ll start the fire again. Klaus has already made himself comfortable in the rocking chair, and only now, after knowing the German for a while, does Nikolai realise why Klaus prefers the rocking chair:

“I’m still surprised you made it to colonel, that with being so restless,” Nikolai teases. Did Klaus rock his chair in that officer’s school he went to? Did he drum with his pencil?

Klaus’ reply is rocking the chair harder. Nikolai snorts at him and proceeds to shove more wood into the fireplace and lighting a match.

This peaceful quietude between them is good, after such an… informative morning. Now that Nikolai is home in peace and quiet, everything he learned about Klaus surges forwards and he goes through it – the borrowed memories of his death (an unpleasant shiver), imagined scenes of his life. He glances over his shoulder, to find Klaus staring at him and chewing at his pipe.

He looks thoughtful. In a way, Nikolai is surprised he hasn’t demanded that Nikolai share some background information of his own, too. The logical conclusion there is that Klaus is waiting for Nikolai’s reaction to what he’s been told. Nikolai looks away, sets the fire iron aside, and makes his way to the rocking chair.

Klaus is watching, blue eyes piercing and intense, searching, curious. Nikolai doesn’t like the thought that there’s another person in the world – Klaus’ sister – that might have such stunning eyes like those. He prefers to think that she doesn’t, though. That Klaus’ eyes are unique, that his parents aren’t even blue-eyed.

He stops next to the chair, rests a hand on the back of it… and pushes downwards, to rock it some more.

“Lulling me to sleep, Ivushkin?” Klaus purrs, looking up, angling his head to expose the line of his jaw and his neck, so obviously that it’s borderline ridiculous. It reminds Nikolai again of his ludicrous conclusion as to what Klaus might want from him - the thought that this sad ghost tries to mimic whatever he observed others doing is both hilarious and…

Nikolai can’t yet decide between pitiful and endearing. Maybe both. Is Klaus even aware of what he wants? Not that Nikolai is willing to think about that particular subject just yet.

If he’ll try, he’ll do it right. He’ll do what he didn’t do with Anya, which is getting to know the other party in the equation – what was Anya doing in 1935, for instance? What was she doing while Klaus was alone in a corner, studying and set in besting his peers?

“Do you want a story, too?” Nikolai asks. Klaus nods immediately, greedily, and it’s tempting to tell him a _story_ indeed. Nikolai supposes he’ll always enjoy pushing Klaus’ buttons. “I was born in 1913. My father worked for the post office, but he was conscripted when the Great War broke out. I… I don’t remember him very well,” And because of that, Nikolai doesn’t miss him. His family is his mother and aunt. “We lived in Moscow, mama and me. But when the Revolution began, we came here – my aunt has always lived here in the village. There was unrest, I remember that much,” But unlike Klaus, who had lived troubled times during his teens, Nikolai had been a child during the Civil War. He remembers times being hard, remembers the atmosphere of fear – but also of hope, of collective effort (or maybe this is just his childish perception of the events). He has vague recollections about authorities decreeing the kolkhoz system, but he had been lucky to never have starved. Not like Klaus had. Nikolai’s mother had (still has) a pension for her husband’s death, but Nikolai remembers there had been hunger. “I used to help in the kolkhoz after school, but I didn’t like it,” Nikolai snorts. “I… I didn’t quite know what I wanted to do. But when our troops marched to meet the Germans in Poland, in 1939, I decided I wanted to be a soldier, too,” A small smile tugs at the corners of his lips – the discovery to the meaning of life feels like it was ages ago – in reality, it has been just a few years. Nikolai notices Klaus is smiling too, like Nikolai has made him particularly proud. He rocks the chair harder just to try and disturb that smile, and unsurprisingly, he cannot. “Mama was afraid and heartbroken, she didn’t want me to go. I went anyway…” Nikolai isn’t particularly proud of having made his mother cry, but back then he had been too excited about finally having found what to do with his life. “I volunteered, I did my training. It was good,” The best, the instructors had said, and Klaus knows that, judging by how he smiles:

“And then you saw a tank,” Klaus provides helpfully, making Nikolai laugh.

Because it had been almost like that.

“I saw tanks long before I went back to Moscow. But during training, I… might have ogled,” He won’t go as far as admitting he had fallen in love. He still can’t believe he and Klaus are so alike. “I was invited to the academy,” Nikolai proceeds, congratulating himself for keeping his tale humble. He too had been the best. Looking at where he stands now, Nikolai doesn’t like to go back to it – so much for being the best, uh? He’s immensely thankful that Klaus _knows_ , and as such, he does not need to boast his skill. “I studied, and I got my tank.”

The rest, Klaus knows. Klaus knows a lot about him, and Nikolai is oddly pleased that now he, too, knows a lot about Klaus – what he has been told complements his previous observations.

“But you didn’t stay in your corner studying every day,” Klaus states, chewing leisurely at his pipe while Nikolai keeps rocking the chair. To that, Nikolai makes a face:

“Of course not, I went out in the city with my friends from the academy!”

Yet look at it… and Nikolai’s only friend is a German ghost.

The thought is… upsetting. He stops rocking the chair and must have made a face, because Klaus calls him and when Nikolai looks at him, the pipe is gone and Klaus is giving him… that look, again. The look of a veteran who knows why his fresh cannon fodder is terrified.

Patience and understanding, yet a veiled threat that cowardice will not be tolerated. A promise to harden spirits and wills.

Nikolai wonders if Klaus ever had someone looking at him like that, but remembers Klaus has always been his own little army, his own little general staff.

“I…” Nikolai frowns, fights the words, but he’s too late and the aim is off, he can’t hit the target. “I wish I had seen… we’re not so different… before.”

Klaus’ expression morphs into something more solemn, borderline hopeful. Painfully fond, outrageously open – _how dare SS-Standartenführer Jäger be so expressive in life and death??_ Nikolai is drawn to it, especially now, that he has the memories of Klaus’ last moments and _knows_ the German never blamed him.

Their enmity has always been one-sided.

“I don’t think I was a soldier, Klaus…” Nikolai continues. Klaus’ brows furrow just slightly, he tilts his head. All the while, Nikolai has been standing rigidly next to the chair. “I didn’t _see_ like you. I don’t think I was worth-“

“Shut up, Ivushkin!” The tone is so aggressive, so commanding, that Nikolai is slightly startled. It doesn’t help in the least that Klaus is standing _right there_ , so close the cold coming off him envelops Nikolai, so close that all Nikolai can see are two angry blue slits.

If Klaus were alive, they’d be breathing each other’s breath.

“I wouldn’t have looked at you if you were less than me, Nikolai,” Klaus snarls. Always so sure of himself, always so infuriatingly _sure_ , unshakable, unbreakable…

Except for that day, by the lake, when Nikolai tried to find something in Anya.

“And why did you look at me, _Nicolaus_?” he mutters, defiant and staring right into those spectacular eyes. “Why do you still look at me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen, people: I was writing comedy. I never planned for depressed idiots. The feelings wrote themselves.  
> Feedback is appreciated and treasured!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you people for your support!  
> I return with another small chapter, hoping it's juicy enough.  
> Hopefully, next month I'll have a longer chapter. Currently I'm doing a lot of writing for college.

An expectant silence fills the living room, isolating them from the world. Nikolai stares attentively into Klaus’ eyes, demanding an answer, yet becoming increasingly distracted by the sheer beauty of the colour and the intensity behind it. Nikolai had never realised how _thrilling_ it is to be looked at like that. It tells him everything he wants to know, but he still wants to hear Klaus speak his mind.

Even because that reverent predatory look, though self-explanatory, brings a whole lot of questions.

Nikolai already has his own questions, and he assumes Klaus, too, must have some.

And that’s why he _wants_ to hear Klaus.

Though trapped in Klaus’ eyes, Nikolai still sees him open his mouth (he has quite a big mouth), close it, purse his lips (he has quite thin lips), work his jaw (he has quite a chiseled jaw).

Anya had never looked at Nikolai like this, and he had never looked at her with so much attention, he realises. But Anya had been beautiful, like most women. Klaus’ features are… strange, need getting used to. Not particularly handsome at first sight, nor at second, and maybe not even at third.

And yet, he is handsome, and he frowns and opens his mouth to speak again:

“You know why I looked at you,” Of course, the bastard won’t just let Nikolai win. No, it has never been like that: Nikolai walks away with his life, but is imprisoned; Nikolai is waiting to die, but is saved; Nikolai wins the duel, but is never the same man again; Nikolai goes on with his life, but not as he wanted. Except that, what he wanted, he doesn’t want anymore. Not entirely, that is. Some things remain unchanged, but a great deal has changed. “You know _why_ I look at you, Ivushkin.”

In the back of his mind, Nikolai hears a leather glove land heavily on cobble stone, tossed in a fit of petty annoyance – or perhaps, concealed anger; or maybe, resignation. He smirks.

Five minutes, and he’ll have defeated Klaus again:

“Hm, do I, _Jäger_?” He tilts his head, never breaks eye-contact. Klaus’ stunning blue eyes narrow just slightly, like he has already caught on Nikolai’s move. “I’m not sure I do. All of a sudden, you go from a nuisance to… tolerable. And out of the blue, I find myself juggling your caprices and my fiancé. And when my fiancé leaves me, the biggest issue is that you hid,” Nikolai crosses his arms and adopts a thoughtful expression, finally freeing himself from that magnificent blue. “And there’s also the mystery of letting you sleep in my bed, and putting up with your presence when I’m taking a shower, and going out into the woods with you. What, I wonder, caused all this?”

Nikolai knows Klaus well enough to be able to tell the ghost will react in two ways. Yet Klaus is like lightning, unpredictable as to where it will strike: Klaus will either have an even more sarcastic reply for Nikolai, or he’ll do something. Nikolai is hoping Klaus will do something.

Yet the damnable German smirks as well, the corners of his lips curling in a knowing ( _infuriatingly smug_ ) way. He steps away, crosses his hands behind his back, and starts pacing in circles around Nikolai. His steps are measured, the clicking of his boots on the hardwood floor monotonous:

“Indeed, what might have caused such a change of heart, Nikolai?”

“You tell me, _Nicolaus_ ,” And he too starts pacing on Klaus’ circle, unsure whether he’s following Klaus’ lead, or if Klaus is chasing after him. “You’re the Standartenführer, after all.”

That has Klaus stopping in his tracks and widening his eyes just a little. Nikolai knows that Klaus understood what he meant, and maybe that will be enough to trigger an action. But the bloody German seems to have learned from their past confrontations, and instead of walking into Nikolai’s ambush or trust him with an uninspected tank, Klaus holds position and dissects everything:

“And you’re the Junior Lieutenant. You ought to deserve a promotion.”

It shouldn’t be as… _thrilling_. This back and forth. Nikolai remembers a time it would be exasperating, a time he’d roll his eyes and wish Klaus would shut that big mouth of his. And yet, now he enjoys it. Intricate, strategic. They go back to walk around each other in the same circle, never breaking eye-contact. Nikolai moistens his lips, thinking furiously of a game-winning argument to finally goad Klaus into action.

He goes over their conversations, and lingers on his newly acquired information about Klaus’ life (or lack thereof). Klaus, so fearless in battle – Nikolai’s eyes drop just momently to the medals on Klaus’ chest, then make a brief stop on the mess of scars on his face before going back to looking at Klaus’ blue eyes attentively – is very much the opposite if removed from a tank and separated from other goons in uniform. Nikolai opts to go that way:

“Are you scared?” he asks, adding a toothy grin for emphasis.

But instead of the impetuous reaction Nikolai was counting on, Klaus stops again and his face assumes a guarded expression. He works his jaw, breaks eye-contact and looks around, like he’s studying the environment around him just in case he’ll need to make a run for it.

And Nikolai knows Klaus _is_ scared.

And even knows why.

He hadn’t seen it, back then. He hadn’t understood Klaus’ interest, and he can’t even understand his own. Still, Nikolai is curious. He doubts it’s a side-effect of having been left by Anya, because if he thinks on it, _Klaus Jäger_ had always have the spotlight – even when Nikolai hadn’t wanted him to. Indeed, Anya is better off without Nikolai, because Nikolai would have never been able to give her the attention to detail she deserves.

Ever since that first encounter, Klaus held all of Nikolai’s mind. Even when Nikolai thought the damnable German hadn’t.

Carefully, like he might spook the ghost, Nikolai approaches Klaus, who stands still and rigid, watching Nikolai’s every movement with slightly narrowed eyes. His face is a mixture of curiosity and mistrust, a stark contrast to his earlier attitude. Nikolai would tease him for it, but _he did that_ , and while he can’t undo it, he can make amends.

Since Klaus hasn’t made a remark nor stepped away, Nikolai leans onto him – they’re basically the same height, but because Klaus is petrified, it has to be Nikolai angling his head a little. The unnatural cold around Klaus doesn’t bother him much, but he still shivers when his lips touch Klaus’ (let him blame the cold, a man’s courage is limited). Klaus’ lips are… disappointingly _cold_ , borderline unpleasant, but only the temperature. The touch itself, a pressure barely there otherwise Nikolai won’t be able to _touch_ Klaus at all, is welcomed. Nikolai could blame it on feeling lonely, but he has learned a valuable lesson about clinging to unimportant pretence.

He’s bold enough to admit to himself he’s kissing Klaus on his own free will, moved by unrequested attraction and sheer curiosity about how the whole affair will play out – namely, because Klaus is a ghost.

The thought of what Nikolai looks like while kissing a ghost only he can see almost makes him burst out laughing and sink to his knees, sobbing over the surrealistic level his life has achieved. On second thought, that would probably have disastrous consequences – Klaus certainly wouldn’t find the mental image of Nikolai _kissing thin air_ as hilarious. Besides, Klaus is tentatively pressing his lips on Nikolai’s and it would be a shame to ruin the moment.

For reasons Nikolai (and seemingly Klaus) can’t understand, only Klaus has the power to go through things or interact with them as if he were physical. He very quickly gains control because of that detail, and Nikolai curses mentally at how he can be clung to while he can’t do anything else besides _barely_ touching Klaus – if he digs his fingers into Klaus’ arms, like he’d very much like to do, he’ll simply grasp a handful of cold air. Speaking of cold, Nikolai is growing truly uncomfortable with Klaus’ freezing lips moving enthusiastically – yet clumsily – against his own, growing numb; and while Klaus doesn’t breathe, the cold around him is starting to bite at the skin on Nikolai’s face.

He’s already used to feeling on his back. He’ll need time to get used to it elsewhere.

Nikolai tries to pull away a little, just to regain sensibility and warmth, but of course Klaus won’t be deterred. The damned ghost is oblivious as to how annoying he can be, let alone have the faintest idea of how _uncomfortable_. Nikolai is too focused on the unpleasant numbness on his lips and the unnatural cold still gnawing at his face to fully appreciate how Klaus changes target and is so happily latching onto his neck, but while he can’t shove Klaus away, he can still tug himself free.

The look he gets from the ghost is of utter betrayal. It would be comical… but it’s not, not for what it entails.

“It’s… cold,” Nikolai mutters when bits of sensitivity return to his lips. He touches them with his fingertips, feels them gelid and a little swollen from Klaus’ enthusiasm.

The moment the words are out, Nikolai regrets it deeply. The betrayal in Klaus’ face is immediately replaced by the same forlorn, broken look he sported that last day with Anya, when Nikolai had desperately tried to find something with her. Worst, Klaus has given a step back, and in a moment of panic, Nikolai leaps at him – only to nearly go through him:

“It’s not that- I mean- I-“ His turn to step back to untangle himself from that mass of unnatural cold given human shape. “Don’t… don’t go.”

Nikolai doesn’t like to babble things, yet now that he’s staring at Klaus’ suddenly unreadable expression, Nikolai plays the words over and creates a catastrophic scenario in his head: Klaus misunderstands what he meant, Klaus vanishes into the staircase again, Klaus won’t talk, Klaus-

Klaus is just standing there, rigidly, insecure, eyes suddenly skittish and darting everywhere, like he’s looking for the quickest escape route – yet, he’s still _there._

With a deep breath, Nikolai moistens his lips, that have gone back to normal:

“It’s just cold,” he mutters. “It doesn’t usually bother me, but-“

The front door opens, immediately drawing Nikolai’s attention. His mother and aunt are back, chatting, and upon noticing him standing there awkwardly in the middle of the living room, his mother immediately recruits him to help with lunch. He must have made quite the face, because his mother and aunt frown and ask him, one at a time, if he’s alright.

“I’ll be waiting,” comes Klaus’ disembodied voice, and despite the statement, the fact that Nikolai _can’t see_ Klaus is enough to stress him beyond reasonable.

* * *

True to his word, Klaus waits.

He doesn’t linger in the kitchen while Nikolai fumbles with the vegetables for the soup (he doesn’t make the vegetables Nikolai tosses into the pan fly back onto the counter); he doesn’t join Nikolai outside when he goes to fetch wood from a small deck at the back of the house (he doesn’t make the axe float out of Nikolai’s reach while he cuts the wood with a self-important snap of his fingers); he doesn’t wander around the living room while Nikolai tries not to shovel down lunch and keeps his mother and aunt reluctant company (Klaus doesn’t walk back and forth, chatting and monologuing and overall making a show of how is voice is nice); he doesn’t appear behind Nikolai to mess with the water pressure while Nikolai does the dishes (nor to jab at Nikolai’s ribs from behind).

True to his word, Klaus waits, and Nikolai finds him in the bedroom, sitting on the windowsill and looking at the sky – gloomy clouds filter the sun, and the eerie white daylight gives a steely glimmer to Klaus’ eyes. He’s in full uniform, though his cap, gloves, and pipe are neatly placed over Nikolai’s bedside table.

“Klaus?” Nikolai calls once the door is shut and locked, like that will prevent his mother from hearing him talking at an even voice, apparently to himself.

The ghost looks over his shoulder, his face still unreadable. Nikolai frowns a little at that, because he did all the talking and he _does not like_ to talk. Not about those matters:

“Not so talkative now, Standartenführer Jäger?” he asks. To that, Klaus narrows his eyes:

“Not so reckless now, Junior Lieutenant Ivushkin?”

And isn’t Klaus _formidable?_ Nikolai isn’t very sure he noticed that, back in the war. He probably did not, too consumed in his pursuit for freedom.

“Not really, no,” he replies, going to sit on the bed, facing Klaus. “The last time got you killed, remember?”

Nikolai’s strategy had admittedly been poor – the part of knocking the tanks together, at least. The tanks could have exploded, could have dug into each other, could have fallen together, the impact could have caused the bridge to collapse.

“Well, I’m dead. You can’t kill me twice, Nikolai,” Klaus remarks, appearing beside Nikolai, who smiles crookedly. He’s not so sure about that, not with that staircase looming somewhere in the bedroom, somewhere he can’t see.

But as much as he hates to admit it, Nikolai was the one _talking_ when they were interrupted. He laces his fingers and keeps his eyes on his hands, presses his lips together one last time as he musters courage to speak. He feels Klaus’ scrutinizing gaze on him.

Klaus, once again, offers him a chance:

“I didn’t know it was cold,” he mutters, his lips turning downwards in a displeased line.

It occurs to Nikolai that Klaus, besides being oblivious about how much of a nuisance he can be, doesn’t feel temperature – _doesn’t feel that Nikolai is warm_.

Could that change? Klaus can now feel Nikolai touch him; will he be able to eventually feel that Nikolai’s hand is warm? Nikolai hopes so, but decides to not dwell much on the subject since Klaus looks truly upset at the fact that he’s _cold_.

“If you’re not attempting to steal by body warmth, then why did you start sleeping in my bed?” It seems like a legit question, albeit… dumb. Nikolai now knows enough about Klaus to _assume with certainity_ the ghost is touch-starved and _to know_ he is interested.

To that, Klaus rolls his eyes and scoffs, like Nikolai has said something outrageously dumb:

“You didn’t complain about that,” he remarks. Preposterous lies. Nikolai totally complained about that.

Internally. Because he thought body language would be enough, but of course it would not, not for a socially handicapped ghost. It also dawns on Nikolai that all the other things he complained about (Klaus being playful, to put it in Klaus’ perspective) were…

“Were you trying to woo me all this time?” Nikolai asks, abashed. The thought that flying files were just Klaus trying to communicate feelings instead of a sadistic sense of humour by torturing Nikolai’s patience is… well, it would be hilarious if Nikolai didn’t suddenly feel so bad for Klaus’ ineptitude.

(How did Klaus even interact with his sister? Did he ever let her know how important she was by switching the sugar in the pot by salt?)

It’s not like Nikolai is knowledgeable on ghosts – heck, if there is anything like that, they surely would be at a loss with Klaus – but even so, Nikolai is pretty sure ghosts shouldn’t redden in the face. Ghosts are dead. Ghosts don’t even have a body, which means, ghosts don’t have blood, not heat. They can’t flush. And ghosts probably can’t… be intimate.

Nikolai’s turn to flush in embarrassment at the thought. But Klaus, bless him, misinterprets the sudden redness of Nikolai’s face and goes back to the point in question: wooing:

“Such a brilliant mind, Ivushkin…” he grunts, pushing out his lower lip in a sulky pout.

“You only ever said you wanted my friendship!” Nikolai argues, refusing to be the dense one in the equation. He knows he is, though. He is dense, and though Klaus is way too expressive, he’s rather clumsy – and now assumes a defensive stance, like a misbehaving child who has just been caught pulling a prank and was scolded publicly:

“I thought that was it…”

Which means that, initially, Klaus’ playfulness was simply… that. Until it turned _wooing_.

“You do realise stealing my loaf of bread isn’t the smartest thing to do,” Nikolai explains patiently. Instead of just having answers to his questions, he’s having even more questions.

Like… when did Klaus become _interested_? When did his admiration towards Nikolai as a soldier got out of hand?

_When did Nikolai become interested????_

Oblivious to Nikolai’s little existential crisis, Klaus offers him a toothy, delighted grin. It’s ominous and endearing in equal measure:

“Well, you did kiss me first!” he chirps, only to grow immediately serious and guarded again. He speaks the truth, though: Nikolai went from trying to outsmart a ghost and get rid of him, to tolerate him, to actually want him around… and then to kiss him.

Nikolai can’t find the turning point for himself, and perhaps not even Klaus knowns exactly when he became _interested_. The events since Nikolai’s arrival home to this very moment, of the two of them sitting side by side, feel like a tangle.

Does it even matter? Not anymore, no. Maybe it did at some point, when Anya was around. But not now, and Nikolai looks over at Klaus, still carrying remnants of a guarded expression despite the grin he just offered.

Even so, Klaus leans in this time, tentatively, and presses his lips to Nikolai’s – it’s still unnaturally cold, which makes it uncomfortable; but at the same time, the contact, stronger than what Nikolai could ever achieve, is pleasant. There’s the novelty of the situation, of course. But that thrill, it’s all because of _Klaus_.

In retrospect, Klaus had already been thrilling to face in the battlefield, not only because he was the enemy, but because he was _Klaus_.

Anya wasn’t thrilling. It was… safe.

Klaus, though? _Klaus’ ghost?_ Nikolai doesn’t have the faintest idea of how things will… unfold. To begin with, it’s Klaus Jäger, and the man (ghost) is his own little universe, with his own moon phases and coming and going of the tide. And then there’s the fact that Klaus is… well, he’s dead, he’s a ghost. Nikolai would very much like to deepen the kiss, because no matter the enthusiasm, Klaus is clearly making things up as he goes, which would be… pleasurable, actually… if he were not freezing Nikolai’s lips again. He pulls away, but just enough to break the kiss while his lips are numbed by cold. He doesn’t even flinch when Klaus tentatively presses his lips to Nikolai’s neck, nor when Klaus repeats it against his jaw. It’s… nice, despite the cold, and he conveys it by tilting his head and granting better access to his neck and jaw.

And Nikolai just knows they’ll find a way, because they always do.

* * *

A new, important question eventually sprouts after just a couple of days of having Klaus happily snuggling up to Nikolai and peppering him with kisses if Nikolai doesn’t object. Which he does not.

In fact, the new question is directly related to all this snuggling and pecking. It has been established Klaus is touch-starved, and clingy, and clueless. But he’s (was?) a fully grown man, and while it’s very obvious there’s things he didn’t do, he must have heard about it – among soldiers, it’s impossible not to. So far, nothing of the sorts has been mentioned, and Nikolai can interpret it as testing the waters, which is very fine.

And so Nikolai wonders on the nature of this whole thing, because Klaus is obviously interested and, by the lack of objections to all the pampering and snuggling, Nikolai is, too. That much is logical.

What Nikolai can’t understand is the _depth_ of it. He always thinks back to Anya as a reference: though she hadn’t been his first, the fact that they met under similar circumstances makes her The Reference, actually. He had been attracted to her, of course. She not only was beautiful, but was smart and courageous. But she had clearly been more invested in their engagement.

The thought that Nikolai isn’t as invested as Klaus is particularly dreadful and rather frustrating, because Klaus is everything Anya isn’t – he’s Nikolai’s very match, and they worked well as enemies, and even made a good team. And Klaus, he’s… he’s likeable. And thrilling, with that false tameness. Still annoying, with how he continues to be ‘playful’ and either makes jam jars impossible to open or makes Nikolai chase around the kitchen after flying sugar cubes.

Yet Nikolai, true to himself, decides not to bring it up. Maybe give it more time, see what… happens. That snuggling and kissing will eventually lead somewhere? Instead, he decides to focus on how much he has already saved and decides it’s enough to venture into trying to make a living in Moscow.

He shares his plans with his mother and aunt, and has their full support. It will be good to be away from the village, away from the people who know he, a veteran who saw combat once (twice, counting with his private war with Klaus), was discharged from the police. It will also be good to be able to finally act like Klaus is there (but isn’t he?), instead of having to wait to be alone in the house or lock himself in the bedroom.

A week into this thing with Klaus, and Nikolai is in the train to Moscow to apply for a job at an armament factory – if he’s accepted, he’ll either be given accommodations or will have to find an apartment, but Nikolai can sort that out later, because the commute from his village to Moscow is doable while he’s still fresh from a life of inaction.

He’s alone, because he wants to do this by himself. He doesn’t want Klaus to pull some ghostly antic and gain the job for him (can Klaus possess people???). Nikolai also doesn’t want Klaus to see the disappointment in his face _if_ he doesn’t get this job.

Not that Nikolai can hide from Klaus. His current predicament is living proof.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is treasured and very appreciated!

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is always appreciated!


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